| Jon Corzine became the "FORMER" Governor of New Jersey this past Tuesday. He spent the Martin Luther King Holiday on January 18th, signing some bills and vetoing others. His veto of the bill allowing the construction of housing in undeveloped areas by making it easier to extend sewer lines was a good thing. That's the Jon Corzine who made me proud to be his running mate.
And then we saw the "let me try to please others" side of my friend, Jon Corzine,....Just 15 minutes before leaving office, Governor Corzine signed the anti-reform, anti-democratic, pro the New Brunswick "pols" bill, to make a new law concerning government change voter referendums. After a Rutgers college student-led move to change the New Brunswick government from all at-large council representatives to some combination of at-large and ward representatives came within a whisper of winning in the last election, the politicos went about constructing a bill which would require a 10 year wait before another citizen sponsored referendum could be voted upon. What an anti-democratic way to end a government reform movement and, thwart the will of voters! We should assume these "leaders" were afraid they couldn't win fairly at the polls. I was personally disappointed that Governor Corzine's last act was to "bow" to some of the same kinds of actions which were in a very small way responsible for our loss. Let's hope a new bill can turn this around. Watch and help us lobby for it! You need to know, as I said earlier, that I inadvertently voted for this and realized too late to change my vote. This was followed by many hours of lobbying against it with both our Assembly and Gov. Corzine.
The issue of very part time appointments to boards and commissions which provide pension credits and health benefits is very much in the news also due to some last minute moves by Governor Corzine. As a member of the Judiciary Committee, I have tried to spend the past year calling attention to these excesses. I have voted No, along with Senator Jennifer Beck, at the committee level and on the floor of the Senate whenever one of these appointments came before us. Can't say I got any help from any others from Governor Christie's party members. Let's hope we'll now see some curbing of these appointments before we start aiming at hard working full time state and local employees.
Now to the "playground fights". If I read the week's news properly, our new Governor is not going on the Chamber trip to DC because he was put in a "holding room" (along with some other perceived slights) while then Governor Corzine attended some business dinner before election day. One newspaper reported that Christie felt "duped" and warned there would be "consequences" if he won. Mmmm....sounds really scary! My respected colleague, Senator Joe Kyrillos, added to the mystique of these various "slights" by talking about a "new world order", with the bold implication that some will be punished! "New world order"? Now that conjures up some nasty images.
More 'get even' games. Then there was the story about Senator Codey deciding to "donate" large amounts of OUR leadership fund to a select group of my democratic colleagues. Perfectly legal. But a little petulent I would say. I thought the fund was to help Democrats throughout the state. And by the way, in case Senator Codey thinks that we "ordinary" legislators have individually assigned parking spaces, he's incorrect. We have plenty of spaces in the Legislators' portion of the garage, and I'm sure he'll have no trouble finding one of them.
President Sweeney, try to give our former Senate President, the respect he deserves, give him the committee work he wants, and let's get on with the important work we need to do for our residents.
So come on guys, I didn't make a fuss when I was assigned the very last seat in the very last row (almost off the stage) at Governor Christie's swearing-in. (And no, it was not alphabetical seating.) Several of my colleagues wanted me to change seats with them in recognition of the fact (I guess) that I did appear on the Democratic ticket as the Lt. Gov. candidate. I laughed when one of the stage directors warned me to be careful not to fall off the end of the riser. I did inform him that I had no intention of "falling off" anything.
So let's stop the "little playground spats" and get on with it! We're all ready!
P.S. As per last week's column, I'm waiting to learn what questions you would like to ask some of Governor Christie's cabinet nominees. I'll be touring some of our schools in Bergen County with Education Commissioner-Designee Bret Schundler, and I'm also meeting with Attorney General nominee, Paula Dow during the next several days. Let's hear from you progressives! And I'm really sorry about the Jets!
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