Success for the re-introduced Marriage Equality bill will be difficult and will necessitate significant grassroots support. This time around Garden State Equality will have less staff and resources to coordinate activities than it had during the lame duck session in 2010. The Catholic Church hierarchy and social conservative opponents remain implacable, and legislators can be fickle. However, with NY's recent victory and stronger support now from legislators (and their leaders) there is reason to hope. There is also reason to be concerned.
What can happen? In the ideal scenario it passes with a veto-proof majority in both houses and become the law in spite of Governor Christie's opposition. In another scenario it passes without a veto proof majority and can then be vetoed or signed into law by the governor. In a really bad scenario it can fail in one or more houses of the legislature. In terms of the overall M. E. objective, inextricably connected are the Garden State Equality / Lamda Legal lawsuit currently in the lower court, a similar federal lawsuit which originated in San Francisco, a possible vote on the part of New Jerseyans, and a possible federal law.
More on the key scenarios and other options for ME in NJ below the fold.
We should never have to apologize for giving credit where it's due. Thank you Steven, and thank you Senator Sweeney! - JG
Can you believe I'm nervous about making a post here, dear Blue Jersey friends? I understand that we progressives have differed with Senator Sweeney on some issues, especially with regard to labor. But I am posting here about Senator Sweeney and marriage equality because fairness compels me to. Please do not demolish me for doing so. For as my grandmother of blessed memory would say, Nu, Steven, how much more therapy do you need?
By now, you've read the stories that Senator Sweeney will be leading the way today in announcing the re-introduction of a marriage equality bill. A special shout out of thanks, by the way, to Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, who has worked tirelessly for years on this issue and will continue to lead the way in the Assembly, and to our Senator Loretta Weinberg, our tireless and beloved legend. And to too many others to name, but most of all to the Blue Jersey community, Garden State Equality's incredible partners in the fight for marriage equality.
Back to Senator Sweeney: This round of marriage equality, he has been spectacular. Other than how our Loretta fights for every issue she believes in, I have rarely seen a legislator work so hard behind the scenes for an issue he believes in.
Yes, Steve had a different view two years ago. But a few months after his last marriage equality vote, Senator Sweeney came to me and said he wanted to make it right. In private, and I think it's okay if I say this, he spoke at quite some length about his change of heart, and this was well before any votes down the line that many disagree with. His change was not a public relations stunt to divert attention from anything else.
I know - I have spent hours with the guy since the start of 2011. Like all people in public life, he's not two-dimensional. More than most people in public life I know, and that's more than a handful, the guy has a capacity for growth and self-reflection. He's not only been amazing on marriage equality, but I also believe we can work with him on other issues, too, and that the team of Steve and Loretta together will fight big fights for us and do big things for us - things we believe in.
I publicly thank Steve Sweeney, and I thank you in advance for not hating me for posting this. Oy, mamele, now the dozens of posts begin!
Over two decades ago, I did some volunteer work for a non-profit organization in Syracuse, New York. One of the executives at that organization was a young man named Dave Valesky. I remember his genuine appreciation toward me and other volunteers for putting in time to help there. His attitude toward his volunteers made working there fun and rewarding.
After I moved to New Jersey, I was pleased to learn that in 2004, Valesky was elected to the New York State Senate to represent the people of Central New York as a Democrat.
I was even more pleased to read this Catholic senator from a conservative district has been a supporter of marriage equality, leading to full marriage rights in the Empire State.
So even though the parameters of the marriage equality battle may be different in New Jersey, I reached out to Valesky to learn about his decision to vote for equality and how it might help the upcoming debate here. He was gracious enough to spend some time with me on a telephone interview.
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.
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.
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.
Quote of the Day today belongs to senators Steve Sweeney and Loretta Weinberg who just issued a joint statement on the occasion of Gov. Chris Christie's visit to a school in Bergenfield, in Weinberg's LD-37 District.
It is great to see the governor visiting the wonderful schools in Bergenfield, home to the outstanding music program where Frankie Valli got started. But somehow we get the feeling the governor forgot to mention to the students and teachers at Roy W. Brown Middle School that he has shortchanged them over $1.7 million in state aid since he came into office. He probably didn't mention the 16,000 millionaires in New Jersey that he further enriched at their expense either. But hey, what's another teacher, a few more school books, or an outstanding music program when you can give someone on the Mets a tax break?
I'm pulling this up top again for a 2nd look, partly because it was originally posted in the middle of the night when traffic is low. That said, there are 21 comments already, good discussion. - Rosi
We now have 21 (plus) guaranteed votes for marriage equality in New Jersey. Senators Jen Beck and Steve Sweeney have indicated their changing from prior abstentions or "no" votes to "yes"votes. There's probably one or two more not yet counted. Should we move ahead with legislation (again) if we are not sure of 27 to override a Christie veto? I'm ready to start along with my colleague, Ray Lesniak. Are you up for the battle to make it to 27? Tell us what you think.
A LOT of money was restored last week that was originally cut out of the budget by the Governor.
Yet very little credit is being given to the main person who led the charge against the Governor.
Steve Sweeney gets a LOT of flack on this "progressive" site ,but very little credit.
It is time to give the man his due.
This is from a M.Symons article which quotes Mr.Murray:
"He wasn't always going to restore. He didn't expect even a little bit of the blowback that he's getting from the people of the state. It's not so much us. The people of the state are angry at his cuts because they went too far," Sweeney said.
"There's an opportunity to restore more than what he's saying," Sweeney said. "The fact that he's feeling so much pressure now, because the cuts clearly were mean-spirited."
Murray said Christie's interest in defusing that phrase is why he spent the week mending fences."You can be a bully and still do good things, but mean-spirited means you're simply out to get somebody, regardless of what the impact would be on anybody else," Murray said.
"The budget cuts essentially handed the Democrats the ability to switch the tag that they used for Christie from bully to mean-spirited, and that is a much more effective public opinion tool to use."
In New Jersey, most Democratic legislators opposed this reform. A good liberal, they said, would never oppose the unions.
Yeah, no liberal would ever ... wait, what? That's not what we said. What we said that no Democrat should shove things down union members' throats without at least trying to bargain the changes. The Unions came to the table repeatedly with different proposals, but Christie and Sweeney ignored them because bargaining was too difficult. They preferred playing bully and slamming it through the legislature.
That's not even close to saying we shouldn't oppose the unions. There are thousands of liberal elected officials on school boards and municipal governing bodies who have negotiated and gotten givebacks from unions. Corzine, not really a liberal but a Democratic governor, did the same.
In fact we do want to fight the unions, because the adversarial bargaining system is what ensures that the unions don't get too much and the government doesn't give too little. It was Christie and Sweeney who didn't want to fight choosing instead to carpet bomb the situation so they didn't have to do any fighting, and then strutting around in a flight suit as if they were tough.
But is it liberal to give public workers these benefits if it means you have to cut back on preschool, job-training and health care for the working poor?
No, Tom, it is not. What's your point? I don't recall anyone but, well, you saying such a thing. Putting sentences in close proximity (the three blockquotes are all in order in his column today) doesn't create the reality of cohesion, just the illusion.
Not hardly. In austere times, the first job is to make government lean, to harden its muscles so it can survive the storm.
Today's Quote of the Day comes from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, by J.K. Rowling:
There are all kinds of courage,' said Dumbledore, smiling. 'It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.
On Monday, Max Pizarro wrote a post about the Democratic Party's veto override votes, quoting pollster Patrick Murray in indicating that this was mainly to get the Republicans (and Christie) on record for supporting draconian cuts to funding that would help New Jerseyans all across the state in need.
Now, I agree that this was a big reason for what some are calling "kabuki theater" - given that the New Jersey Governor has the power of a line item veto, more power (in general) than many other states afford their Governors, a state Republican Party that has consistently fallen in line with what this particular Governor wants, and this particular Governor who has consistently acted in a confrontational and belligerent manner when it comes to supporting those who support him and punishing those who don't.
I also agree that it was a necessary step - one that should have been done last year as well as opposed to Senate President Sweeney delivering a handful of Democratic votes for a budget that Christie crafted, instead of acting as the leader of the Party in charge of the Senate and crafting their own budget. And I also agree that it was fairly obvious that (1) Christie was going to veto these items, (2) an override vote would (and should) be held, and (3) the vote would fail. This is not a shock. The fact that anyone would be shocked at the outcome is really the shock here.
I've also seen a lot of criticism hurled at Sweeney for not negotiating the budget items (either before or after) the odious pension and benefit bill that he shephered through. And to me - that isn't the issue. Quite honestly, I doubt that the budget items or the pension/benefit bill would be something that Sweeney and the Legislative Democrats would go to the mat on if Christie refused to negotiate, so I don't know that would have worked.
But what would have worked is not bringing those bills to the floor in the first place - something that I doubt would have been voted on or passed if Dick Codey was still Senate President, for example.
That being said, this is a time where the State Democratic Party needs to figure out what their plan is - what is next. They came up with a budget and didn't get many of the things that are sorely needed. They passed a millionaire's tax that was vetoed. They have seen very clearly that the State Republican Party will obstruct, bloviate and talk out of both sides of their mouths, so there will be little to no help there. They have also been saddled with the actions of their elected and unelected leaders - Sweeney, Oliver, Adubato, Norcross and a revolving door of a few Democrats who are good on most issues but detrimental on a few big issues.
In short - the State Democratic Party (even down to a local level, as Bergen County is at a similar crossroads, but for different reasons) needs to look inward, find out what they are all about, what they stand for, who they represent and what their way forward is. Because at this point, they have a very uphill battle - both legislatively and in regaining the trust of many New Jerseyans.
We don't always talk about our ads. And we take ads from all kinds of businesses, campaigns, issue groups, and candidates. (Want to talk advertising?)
But this one is a little different. PCCC - that's Progressive Change Campaign Committee - is run by AdamGreen, a friend of some of ours here, and the former Communications Director of the state Democratic Party. PCCC's pretty alert to what's been going down in New Jersey since the dealmaking that led to the intentional weakening of public worker bargaining, and the fractures this produced in the Democratic Party. And they put their campaign together partly in intel from Blue Jersey.
PCCC's looking down the line at 2013, and looking for your name on a petition seeking support for a better candidate than Sweeney when it comes time for Democrats to choose a candidate for Governor.
As we did all day yesterday, Blue Jersey will be LIVE-Tweeting today's NJ Senate session, and observing the Democrats' almost-certainly doomed efforts to overturn some of Gov. Christie's harshest cuts - to his own budget that he submitted. What succeeded in this session is getting Republicans on the record defunding and sometimes dismantling programs New Jerseyans depend on. And go on the record they did, saying some pretty crappy, pretty stupid and pretty inaccurate things. Here's Sweeney, Codey and Greenstein talking about that.
Deciminyan is in the Senate gallery, and we hear he's even found a power outlet. This is in the absence of the gavel-to-gavel coverage of important legislative sessions that NJN used to provide. Ironically, NJN was killed in this very House of the Legislature because of backroom dealmaking. And apparently, thusfar, the disappointing NJTV has no interest in turning their cameras on this kind of legislative session.
The session is just starting. You can also try watching the NJ Legislature website's video feed, but I'm not sure how the quality will be. Yesterday, it was skipping and stopping every few minutes.
Soon after yesterday's NJ Senate session, engineered to get Republican legislators on the record item by item dismantling programs and funding many New Jerseyans must depend on, senators Steve Sweeney, Dick Codey (current and past Senate presidents) and Linda Greenstein sat down for an interview before 101.5's microphones. And somebody turned the video camera on.
Ironically, Sweeney muses on the Governor's power, even with a reach of several hundred miles away on vacation. NJ GOP was in lockstep, except for Jennifer Beck's return to at least a surface pro-women stance, joining the Democrats' attempt to override Christie's cutting out of funds for women's health and family planning programs. Codey complains about the gamesmanship of Christie's cutting his own budget, after the legislature returned it to him intact. Greenstein, for me, was the most effective, recalling some of the revolting things Republicans said on the Senate floor yesterday. That was Day #1 of this effort. Day #2 was scheduled to start 10am today, and is running late.
Deciminyan will be live-Tweeting it all day at @bluejersey.
The hits just keep coming for Steve Sweeney. After betryaing public workers, failing to save NJN, taking to the cleaners by Christie on the budget, and his faux verbal tirade against Christie, which fell flat, he was upbraided by members of his own caucus over his ineptitude and incompetence.
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