There were no flashing lights or red flags that let 4,000 women across this country know that cervical cancer was coming.
Most of these women - mothers, sisters, daughters, and aunts - felt no pain and lived normally unaware of the disease that in a matter of time would take their lives.
Most of these women - the majority of whom were under the age of 65 - are survived by friends and family, neighbors and co-workers who loved them and miss their presence daily.
All of these women - casualties of an illness that is 100 percent preventable - should still be here today.
(We all saw what happened to the economy when the Republicans eliminated financial protection regulations. Now, we can't let Governor Christie and his Koch Brother cronies do the same to the environment by gutting environmental regulations. - promoted by deciminyan)
As you know, earlier this year Governor Christie set out to change the rules and allow corporations to end-run long-standing environmental laws. Essentially, this would weaken over 100 necessary protection guidelines. The Christie's Administration's radical, regressive push would put not only New Jersey's land, air and water in harm's way, but the health of our families, as well.
It was as if the General Assembly chamber in Trenton had a mechitza down the middle. But instead of separating the genders, it separated the festive atmosphere on the Democratic side from the mostly empty Republican side.
The occasion was the opening of the lame duck session, highlighted by the swearing in of the newest member of the body, Troy Singleton.
Contested statewide Democratic primary elections do not happen very often here in New Jersey. Since I started paying close attention to New Jersey politics in 1997, there have only been four seriously contested statewide Democratic primary elections. In 1997, then-Woodbridge Mayor Jim McGreevey defeated Congressman Rob Andrews and Morris County Prosecutor Michael Murphy for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. In 2000, Jon Corzine bought more votes than his senatorial opponent, former Governor Jim Florio, was able to earn. In February 2008, Hillary Clinton defeated Barack Obama in the Presidential primary election. In June of that year, Andrews lost his second statewide primary election when he challenged the incumbent U.S. Senator, Frank Lautenberg.
It appears as if we will have a hotly contested Democratic gubernatorial primary election in 2013. The most likely candidates at the moment are State Senators Barbara Buono, Dick Codey, and Steve Sweeney. It is possible that other candidates could come out of the woodwork over the next year or so, but for the sake of this discussion, the names are less important than the questions that the current political dynamic in the state, which has Democratic Party bosses, including but not limited to Steve Adubato and George Norcross, closely aligned with Republican Governor Chris Christie, raises about how serious these bosses are about defeating Christie.
These bosses and their acolytes in the State legislature have enabled Christie to get more of his agenda passed than our last Democratic Governor, Corzine, and have never even come close to a government shutdown like the one which occurred as a result of the conflict between Corzine and then-Assembly Speaker, Joe Roberts, a Norcross minion, over whether the state sales tax should be increased, and if so, how the additional revenue should be spent. So it stands to reason that Adubato, Norcross et al would probably prefer to have one of their own (Steve Sweeney being the most likely candidate, but Assemblyman Louis Greenwald is another possibility) as Governor than Christie, but in lieu of that, it would not be safe to assume that they would prefer someone else, like Buono or Codey, over Christie.
The annual League of Municipalities Convention is really 3 things at once - an educational experience on better governance for new and veteran elected officials; a marketing opportunity for existing and would-be public sector vendors; and a networking opportunity for incumbent and future politicians. Having attended this week's convention in (at least) one of those capacities, here's a Lucky 7 recap of what I came away with, in no particular order:
1- Yes, the 2013 race for Governor has begun. While I'm not sure it will really take off until Congressional Redistricting is finished, it's pretty clear who the big 3 potential candidates are right now - Steve Sweeney, Barbara Buono and Dick Codey - each of whom have a solid core of supporters, with little crossover from one to the other. Honorable mention would go to Wiz, who shouldn't be counted out just yet. But, that's pretty much it.
"If you don't know where you're going,
you'll wind up somewhere else."
- Yogi Berra of Montclair, New Jersey
I've written and deleted six versions of this diary about the maneuvers that discarded two people who distinguished themselves this year by exhibiting core Democratic values, when it wasn't always simple to do so. Frankly, it's hard to think about this without wanting to pick the broken glass out of my teeth; Even with solid Democratic wins, this has been an awful week. A tense week for some people we admire greatly.
It was easier, and perhaps more profitable this year to bind with the Christie collaborationists. To fall in line. To hear Tea Party activists screaming in one ear about the cost of government, and New Jersey's unelected power brokers whispering soft directions in the other ear. Plenty of our Democrats fell in line. On more than one issue. Barbara Buono and Joe Cryan did not.
In the Senate Democratic caucus, the vote has just been taken. By a unanimous vote, Steve Sweeney is re-elected as Senate President. Senator Weinberg is the new Senate Majority Leader in this session.
Our best wishes to both, and to outgoing Majority Leader Barbara Buono.
Two years ago, I was honored to be selected as the first woman to serve as Senate Majority Leader in New Jersey history.
This was an important milestone for our state, which has always led the nation in promoting diversity and inclusion. It was an important milestone for the Democratic Party, which quite literally relies on women to maintain its electoral majorities. And, it was a great personal milestone for me.
UPDATE: Now posted under the fold: Letter from Senator Buono to her colleagues in the New Jersey State Senate this morning regarding her decision to not seek re-election as Majority Leader.
See also Unanimous: Sweeney Senate President, Weinberg Majority Leader politickernj gets it in print before we do, Majority Leader Barbara Buono has, as this morning's caucus meeting to determine leadership gets underway, taken herself out of the running.
This morning, votes are lined up to elect Loretta Weinberg Majority Leader for the next Senate session, after a power-sharing arrangement was suggested by Senate President Steve Sweeney, and rejected by Sen. Buono.
Loretta Weinberg, a frequent contributor here, is a solid progressive with a good voting record. In isolation, I would have no problem with her being senator majority leader, or senate president for that matter. But being solid on the issues and voting the right way is not the be all and end all. By all reports, as she did in 2009, Senator Weinberg is siding with the Essex-Camden (Hudson) boss axis of Christiecrats to depose a true blue Democratic from leadership. She did it in 2009 to Dick Codey. Now she appears to be doing it to Barbara Buono. In 2009, she apparently got a committee chair out of it.
She's ruthless," said a source, pointing out that in 2009 Weinberg cut the deal with Norcross to back Sweeney for Senate president so she could land the chairmanship of the Senate Health Committee, and Weinberg's 2002 rejection of Joe Doria for speaker after he thought he had the Bergen senator in his corner.
Unless a miracle takes place this Tuesday and Republicans in LD1, LD3, and LD4 pull off major upsets, South Jersey party boss, George Norcross, will have more than enough votes to replace his primary adversary in the Assembly, Majority Leader Joe Cryan, with his top ally in the legislative body, Louis Greenwald, sending Cryan to the back bench.
What remains to be seen, however, is what Cryan will do once he is sent there. Will he unite with his fellow back bencher in the Senate, Dick Codey, to build an opposition movement that will contend not only for the Governor's office in 2013, but also all 120 legislative seats? As much as I would love to see this, I do not expect that this will happen. It is very possible that Dick Codey will run for Governor in 2013, but it is also possible that Cory Booker, Barbara Buono, and Steve Sweeney will run as well and it is unlikely that any of them will run opposition slates against the party lines that they do not win, which means that regardless of who wins the gubernatorial primary, there will not be much change in the legislative roster or its leadership.
If I am right about this, then Cryan will most likely remain on the back bench for most of the next decade. That is, unless he finds a new office for which to run or that office finds him. There have been times in the past decade when Cryan expressed an interest in running for Congress in the 7th district, but admitted that the current configuration of the district made it extremely difficult for a Democrat to win.
This is very true. Our best chance to win this district came in 2006 when a very popular Assemblywoman, Linda Stender, challenged a very unpopular Congressman Mike Ferguson in a year that Democrats were trending up and Republicans were trending down. However, despite these trends, Stender came a few thousand votes short of victory. Two years later, Stender did not run as strong of a campaign as she did in 2006 and faced a very popular State Senator, Leonard Lance. Despite huge turnout increases inspired by Barack Obama's candidacy, it was not enough for a Democrat to win the 7th and Lance defeated Stender by a much wider margin than Ferguson did two years earlier.
Our campaign is going up with our first television commercial tomorrow. And I wanted to give you - my friends at Blue Jersey - a sneak peak before anyone else sees it.
This past Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Barbara Buono spoke at a fundraiser for 16th District Assembly candidate Marie Corfield. Buono talked about how Marie would be an excellent assemblywoman, the state of education in New Jersey, and the initiative to privatize education in order to divert tax funds to the coffers of hedge fund managers.
Disclosure: I am working on Marie Corfield's campaign
Real Democrats prioritize children over corporations.
Real Democrats prioritize health care for all over tax breaks for millionaires.
Real Democrats support organized labor over political bosses.
Real Democrats speak truth to Republican lies.
This is a video of two New Jersey state senators, Real Democrats, at yesterday's "debate" over Governor Christie's veto of funds for after-school programs for at-risk children.
Ask my wife. Or ask any of my friends. I rarely get mad. I'm one of those folks who "goes with the flow" no matter what happens around me. So why was I feeling so livid when I left the Senate session today?
At that session, several dozen of Governor Christie's line item vetoes came under consideration for override. In the end, none were overridden.
While continuing to give tax breaks to millionaires, the governor panders to the Tea Party by slashing funds for women's health, legal services to the indigent, help for the blind and dyslexic, and Medicaid assistance for poor families.
UPDATE 1:06 Sen. Diane Allen, who rightly received so much good will during the time she herself was ill, is so far not voting on anything, so engrossed is she with something on her laptop computer. She's dead-silent on bills to assist other sick people, like the AIDS drug distribution program, which just failed a few minutes ago for want of any GOP support. Also GOP Sen. Kevin O'Toole just hurled invective at Sen. Rice. The exchange was well-covered both by politickernj and in our live twitter feed @bluejersey.
UPDATE 12:15: Among the revelations in today's Senate session? GOP's Sen. Cardinale just said Planned Parenthood promotes child prostitution.
Maybe it's fitting that today's much-discussed meeting of the full Senate will be the first time a major session of the NJ legislature won't be getting the gavel-to-gavel coverage we came to depend on from NJN.
We love us some Sesame Street but right now - and I am not kidding - actor Patrick Warburton is teaching a muppet the word stuck on the (so far unimpressive) NJTV. Next up, presumably, the word irony.
Deciminyan is in the Senate chamber and is live-Tweeting the session gavel-to-gavel. Follow @bluejersey. Hashtag #njsenate.
Thirty-nine separate bills will be discussed, each one of them an attempt by Democrats to restore funding for programs that assist New Jerseyans in some way - teachers for blind kids, AIDS treatment, seniors in nursing homes, health screening and treatment for poor women, postpartum education (I'm sorry, does the GOP only care about the "pre-born", not the post-born?). Senator Weinberg wrote about this this morning for Blue Jersey, Senator Buono talked about it here this weekend.
The New Jersey legislature - and in particular, its Senate - has in these last few weeks failed several crucial gut checks. Leadership in both houses seems not to lead, and sometimes not even to agree, with the caucus, or core principles. And harsh sunlight has bleached out some of the backroom deals between the shadow government that appears to make some of the real decisions in Trenton. We see the ugly things under the rock, but we know that both Republicans and Democrats in power have an interest in keeping that rock just where it is.
It's been a bad month. And it's likely to be a bad day. The Republicans, better at lockstep than the Dems are, have signaled in no uncertain terms they don't intend to help Democrats override Gov. Christie's "surprise" cuts to the budget that so "enraged" Sen. Sweeney, or appeared to, before God or Thor sent lightning down from the sky to try and snap the Senate President into reality.
But yes, we want each Senator on the record, as Loretta Weinberg says. Follow us: @bluejersey. NJ Legislature video feed is here but feed is skipping a lot.
While I posted a diary just yesterday morning, I felt compelled to write one again today given the impending action the State Senate will be taking on Monday, July 11th.
It's been a tough week of reckoning for New Jersey. This year, the Democrats in the Legislature introduced a budget that restored funding to programs providing health, education and welfare to the state's citizens. In drafting our alternative budget, we used revenue projections provided by the state's nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services, whose staff economists are highly regarded for their impartiality and professionalism.
Hudson Taylor is a competing athlete and Division I college
wrestling coach at Columbia University. He graduated from
the University of Maryland as a Division 1 three-time All-
American wrestler in 2010 and currently ranks among the
top-five pinners in NCAA history. Hudson will soon compete
to qualify for the 2012 Olympic Team.
The Courier-Post's opinion editor Mike Daniels ran a recent Sunday feature citing folks, "who closely follow state politics to give us their take -- who they think might vie for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, and what advice they would give the candidates."
I am excited to hear how'd you'd answer. Meantime, here was my take:
"My short list includes Sweeney, Buono and Booker at this point. If the election were tomorrow I think a Sweeney/Buono ticket seems most plausable, given the state's machine-driven dynamics which don't favor Booker at the moment. A Rob Andrews/Loretta Weinberg ticket is my fantasy pick."
My recommendations for the Democrats who throw their hat in against Christie: (below)
