| What a horror took place on Saturday in Arizona. Congresswoman Gabby Giffords is apparently well liked, extremely respected with moderate views on most issues. I spoke to "my" Congressman Steve Rothman who knows her well and serves on the Sub-Committee on Space & Aeronautics with her. We will all keep her in our thoughts as she fights for life. I just saw a report on the beautiful and talented nine year old girl who was one of the six killed by this perverted murderer. A child, born on 9/11/01 who was just elected to her student council, and who wanted to meet her Congresswoman. What a cruel moment.
I know over the next days and weeks, we will get some answers and probably more questions about just how and why this event was perpetrated. Whatever, the reasons, the nasty rhetoric, name calling, violent speech and anger in our current political discourse can't be considered just innocent byproducts. I know about and appreciate "tough" politics - I've survived a few such skirmishes myself - but I think it more than past time to start curtailing some of the excesses in our political interchanges. Fox News might be a good place to start.
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Judiciary Committee meets at 10 a.m. today to interview several Christie nominees. One of the more interesting is certainly Ronald Gravino, nominated for a seat on the N.J. Turnpike Authority. Mr. Gravino was most recently the treasurer for Reform New Jersey Now. Remember them? Lots of pay-to-play folks on that list. We'll also be interviewing several nominees for the State Board of Education. I'll be asking their views on vouchers, charter schools, County Supts. of Education, and diminishing the requirements for School Supts. If you have access to the state web sites, you can listen on streaming audio.
This afternoon the full Senate & Assembly will be in session. I have up the I&R bill to restore the rights of citizens to petition the voters to change their form of local government. The bill changes the newly established (and anti-democratic) 10 year span between such questions on the ballot back to 5 years for a successful change and 3 years for a defeated question. At the end of the last session I made a promise to try to right this badly conceived law. Today, I hope to fulfill part of that promise. We will also be considering Senator Lesniak's amendments for the COAH law which reduces the State's affordable housing obligation by almost 113,000 units to approximately 48,300. There's also several "pro-business" bills on the board list.
Kathe Donovan was sworn in yesterday as the first female Bergen County Executive. It was a well attended, low key, but festive gathering. Bergen Senators Bob Gordon, Paul Sarlo, Gerry Cardinale and myself were seated on the dais along with Assemblymembers Gary Schaer, Gordon Johnson and Valerie Huttle. Of course, the rest of the Republican Freeholders were present, and Senator Bob Menendez was invited to say a few words long with Congressman Steve Rothman. Notably absent: Governor Chris Christie (also rather absent from Kathe's prior campaign) and the two sitting Democratic Freeholders Bernadette MacPherson and David Ganz. Not too classy in my book.
Speaking of our Governor (I guess I was), he took a little "playground" shot at me in yesterday's Bergen Record. From the In His Own Words Segment: "What makes me laugh is when folks like (Democratic Sen.) Loretta Weinberg put out her screeds. Enough already." ("Screeds", by the way can be translated as "shrill"). He went on to say "Weinberg wants to cancel contracts given to people in 2009 when Jon Corzine was Governor because they gave to Reform New Jersey Now. To me enough with the hypocrisy...." Well Dear Governor Christie, it was NOT me who suggested that Reform New Jersey Now give back contributions, but rather Senator Barbara Buono (not that it's a bad idea). I guess it's hard to keep all those girls' voices separated.
My "screed" was: Dear Governor: can you give me and my constituents in Bergen County more information on the deal one of your advisors struck with new Xanadu developers? Now how "shrill" is that? Oh yes, and I did fire a letter off asking for an investigation of Reform New Jersey Now to see if it was formed to get around pay-to-play laws. And of course I have continued calling for the reinstatement of poor women's access to health care. Pretty hypocritical of me!
I know you're the Governor with great power and I respect you and the office you hold. But even powerful Governors have to put up with the likes of Senator Barbara Buono, a talented and very smart lawyer, the first woman Majority Leader in our State Senate, who he called "laughable"; or the first Black woman Speaker of the Assembly, Speaker Sheila Oliver, who he once called a "liar"; and even little me who one of my "screeds" was to request a meeting with you to discuss cooperation on ethics reform. My how uppity can we girls get? I guess we will just have to learn how to get along with the big guy in the big front office!
Happy New Year.
Keep your voices heard! |
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