When you think of pollsters in New Jersey, one of the first names that comes to mind is Patrick Murray of Monmouth University. Yet, even an iconic figure like Murray has succumbed to the Tea Party propaganda. Check out this video snippet from his interview on NJ Today:
"Republican voters are against any tax hikes. Democratic voters are against any cost cuts."
The first part of Murray's statement is true, as we have seen with the so-called "super committee" and Governor Christie's justifying his double veto of the millionaire's tax based on the false assertion that it would drive wealthy people out of the state. But stating that Democratic voters are against cost cutting is just plain wrong and Murray should know better.
First, many Democrats are in favor of cutting the bloated defense and homeland security budgets, but have been stymied by the Republican minority. But even ignoring this obvious fact, Democrats have long been willing to compromise (some say too willing) on social programs to get the Republican votes they need to unjam the Senate filibusters that have been crippling our economy.
I can only assume that Murray has fallen victim to the biases about the economy that are pervasive within the mainstream corporate media.
Here they are in their first public appearance together, the new leadership teams in both the Assembly and Senate. (Note: incoming Senate President Pro Tempore Nia Gill was not present).
"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.
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.
Despite the snow and slush, there was a good turnout at a Get Out The Vote Rally tonight in Willingboro. The keynote speaker was Newark Mayor Cory Booker (who was introduced by long-time New Jersey resident and Olympic gold medal winner Carl Lewis). Booker spoke in support of our legislative slate (Assemblyman Herb Conaway, Troy Singleton, and Gail Cook). Following his remarks, Booker spoke with Blue Jersey:
Mayor Booker's remarks to the crowd are below the fold.
“People, Not Politics.” That’s the tag line on the yard signs for the GOP candidates in the 7th Legislative District. And it’s about as misleading as Fox’s tag line, “Fair and Balanced.”
I’ve written before about how the head of the ticket, Senator Diane Allen, puts politics before people. Her silence during the Senate debate on women’s health care and her failure to vote to override the governor’s veto were clearly political and not in the best interests of the people of Burlington County. This course of action flies in the face of her past record of independence from the party hacks, but it seems that she has transformed into just another Republican who votes lock step with their Tea Party leaders. Putting politics ahead of people was also her choice in supporting the governor’s paean to the Koch brothers by promoting increases in respiratory diseases with the withdrawal from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
As bad as that is, her running mates are even more anti-people and pro-politics. Mount Laurel Mayor Jim Keenan, who flip-flopped on his position on the 2% property tax cap (perhaps under the influence of Trenton politicians?) is not in favor of allowing two people who are in love to marry. He and his running mate, businessman Chris Halgas, are strongly committed to marriage discrimination. Both subscribe to the failed premise that tax cuts promote jobs, thus putting corporations in front of people on their priority list. And I suppose their slogan is accurate if you consider the subset of people who are millionaires. All three support tax breaks for the wealthy while cutting services to the other 99%.
Allen, Keenan, and Halgas are certainly entitled to campaign on whatever platform their political masters gin up for them. But don’t give the voters Orwellian Doublespeak when you frame this pro-wealthy anti-middle class agenda as “People, Not Politics.”
Andy Smarick, the Christie administration's Deputy Commissioner of Education, testified before Senator Theresa Ruiz's Education Committee today about a state-wide teacher evaluation program that its being rolled out this school year. The program, EE4NJ, considers both objective and subjective criteria. The pilot program will run through the current school year. Following the hearing, Senator Ruiz spoke with the press.
Senator Ruiz's video and the NJEA's response are below the fold.
This is such an interesting coda to the diary I wrote last night. In my read, it's both sad and inspiring. For sure, Joe Lieberman didn't deserve Stephen, who is a candidate for office right now Berkeley Heights Township Council - Rosi
I read Rosi's article on the front page of Blue Jersey with great interest. It was wonderful to see how she and so many NJ-DFA members came up to Connecticut to support a progressive Democrat in Ned Lamont.
However, I have a confession to make: not only was I not among them, but at the time I was trying to help his opponent win renomination. It was a futile effort on my part, and one I now regret.
The title of this piece is contradictory. After all, it in and of itself, is a generalization.
But I'll still go out on a limb and make a generalization - In any of New Jersey's 40 legislative districts it is better to elect a Democrat than to elect a Republican in the upcoming election.
A few minutes ago, we ran the Saturday speech of Sen. Bob Menendez, whose re-election looms in 2012. Here, now, is Sen. Frank Lautenberg, speaking on the Senate floor on the same day on the debt ceiling debate:
I missed it live but got about 10 emails during Sen. Bob Menendez' speech on the Senate floor Saturday night, that it was very good, and needed to be said. As the debt deal rollicks to a rocky end, we now have video of that speech. We'll have video of Senator Lautenberg's speech this weekend, next. Here is Senator Menendez:
"Senate Restores Sanity" is a headline on Senator Frank Lautenberg's latest statement as he proudly says it "took a stand against the extreme House Republican agenda by voting down this sham bill that would have devastated middle-class families." Senator Bob Menendez joined Lautenberg in this vote.
Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (N.J.) noted "a little separation" between Obama and his former Senate caucus."
That's a lot nicer but the content isn't necessarily much different. Our Senators have to make sure that they don't support a "sham bill" just because their otherwise fine President negotiated it.
Update: 11:18AM The President is speaking now, or you can read his USA Today article. Unfortunately, he could have accomplished everything he says about taxes on the rich last December without a single Republican vote.
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.
Discussion of Governor Christie's proposal to give New York's WNET control of NJN television has correctly focused on the deal's impact on broadcast coverage of New Jersey news, public affairs, culture and history. But the agreement for WNET to operate NJN television also brings great benefits for WNET to the detriment of New Jersey taxpayers. Even though the State of New Jersey will retain ownership of NJN's television broadcast licenses, WNET's operating agreement with New Jersey gives WNET access to millions of new potential members and donors plus use of NJN's donor lists. In return WNET pays absolutely nothing and isn't required to continue current programming or hire NJN staff.
Control of NJN Moves to NYC
As part of the takeover of NJN, WNET has created a New Jersey non-profit corporation called Public Media New Jersey (PMNJ) a majority of whose governing board must be residents of the State of New Jersey. However, PMNJ is structured as a direct subsidiary of WLIW, the former Long Island station that was taken over by WNET in 2003; that is, WLIW is the sole member of PMNJ. WLIW is itself a direct subsidiary of WNET. So the supposed New Jersey non-profit, PMNJ, is actually controlled by a Long Island corporation which in turn is controlled by a NYC corporation (WNET.) The fact that the a majority of PMNJ's governing board must be New Jersey residents will have little practical impact.
S2937, the Christie-Sweeney plan to dramatically alter collective bargaining rights in New Jersey, passed the Senate this afternoon 24-15. The Assembly version - A4133, as introduced by Lou Greenwald (D) and Declan O'Scanlon (R) - is next, first in Assembly Budget (which Greenwald chairs), then to the full Assembly for a vote. Gov. Christie will almost certainly sign it into law if it reaches his desk. Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver, who has pushed this bill despite a body that may not be warm to it, said "bold, demonstrative large steps" are what's needed now.
Labor - CWA Political Director Bob Masters told the Assembly minutes ago that "real Democrats" would have killed this bill. Charlie Wowkanech, NJ AFL-CIO President said, "Where labor has no voice, democracy has no future."
Gov. Christie owes Steve Sweeney - Senate President, Democrat and 'union man' - a great deal for introducing and championing this bill. Its motive and agenda is largely Republican, as any student of current events can see. And Sweeney is choosing to use his position in the Senate to ram home legislation that threatens the long tradition of pubic employee labor having the power of collective bargaining negotiation to help determine working conditions, a fundamental of the Party he leads.
As 12mileseastofTrenton notes, Sweeney's own caucus voted against him 2-1, and the calls for his ouster as Senate President may grow louder.
The Norcross Provision As we noted earlier, the Senate bill was amended today to remove a much-disputed and cost-ineffective provision to limit public workers' access to out-of-state medical care. But Assemblyman Greenwald appears interested in restricting public worker medical care to inside-Jersey, a highly debatable concept given for example that of the top 50 cancer hospitals in the U.S., none is in New Jersey. The part of the bill snidely referred to as the "Norcross provision" comes about as New Jerseyans calculate who might have stood to benefit from this legislation, or at least that part of it. Several of the world's best hospitals in the world are just outside New Jersey's borders, in NYC and in Philadelphia. Norcross, Sweeney's benefactor and South Jersey Democratic Party boss, is Chair of Cooper Hospital in Camden, which has recently stepped up advertising to compete with premiere hospitals in Philadelphia. Restricting public workers to NJ facilities would certainly have boosted traffic to Cooper, and the fact that the provision would have furthered Sweeney's benefactor's interests added to the sense that this was payback to Sweeney's benefactor for Sweeney's monumental effort to ram this home against a rich ethical tradition of his own Party.
In this diary, I will cover the first group of competitive races in the upcoming legislative elections, and analyze the rest later this week. It is also posted at DailyKos.com (under "Mr. Liberal" as well). As we know, the Senate stands at 24 Democrats and 16 Republicans, and the Assembly 47 Democrats to 33 Republicans. In short, the GOP needs 4 Senate and 8 Assembly seats to take control.
You can read my analysis of the first group below.
One wonders how this news will go down in the front office of the most political governor in New Jersey's history, the Unitary Executive Chris Christie, whose number 2 on his ticket is also - Katherine Harris style - the top election official in New Jersey, by his order.
In the latest development in Olympic gold medalist and Democrat Carl Lewis' efforts to get on the LD-8 ballot for Senate, a federal judge has just ordered LG Kim Guadagno (who also serves Gov. Christie in a dual capacity as Secretary of State), NJ Attorney General Paula Dow and the three county clerks inside the 8th District to show why Lewis should not be included in the vote-by-mail primary election ballots due to be sent out Thursday.
Yesterday, in a highly questionable and certainly controversial decision, Guadagno knocked Lewis off the LD-8 ballot. In doing so she granted the position taken by Republicans that Lewis does not meet residency requirements. Administrative law judge John Schuster 3rd had earlier dismissed the GOP residency challenge, saying the Republicans failed to meet the burden of proof.
Lewis has already filed suit against Guadagno in federal court, claiming the residency requirement violates the US constitution, and his civil rights, and requesting a restraining order on printing and mailing primary ballots without his name. US District Court Judge Noel Hillman said if Lewis is eventually found eligible to run "the mailing of inaccurate or incomplete primary election ballots could constitute irreparable harm and confuse voters on a matter of fundamental public interest." Hillman's order essentially keeps Lewis on the ballot, at least for now. And it requires state and county clerks to make their case against an injunction sending those ballots out. The parties meet at the U.S. District Court in the District of New Jersey in Camden at 1 p.m. tomorrow.
Senator Bob Menendez sat down for an interview with POLITICO recently, and here's that video. Menendez ran the Senate's 2010 campaign strategy, a year we lost 6 seats. Part of what he talks about here is the rise of corporate spending on the right, post Citizens United, particularly the fueling of tea party candidates by the Koch brothers. Overall, Menendez says he tracked $70 million in corporate spending against Senate Democrats. He calls it "a corruption of our election system," that absent a constitutional solution, should require greater disclosure and transparency in spending.
Menendez also has strong advice for 2012 candidates, to seize the debate over gas prices, the budget and federal spending, offering a well-framed debate that resonates with most Americans simplistic cries of things like "Drill, baby, drill." That's a particularly attractive piece of advice as we approach the 1-year anniversary of BP's Deepwater Horizon explosion and the massive oil spill that dirtied the Gulf of Mexico. Menendez is against allowing an expansion of offshore drilling - both our senators are - and has an idea how Democrats can respond legislatively to the BP oil spill disaster. "Use it or lose it," Menendez says: legislation that would essentially penalize companies that do not produce on drilling leases they have already been granted.
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