He's the Senate's oldest: 87.
Two years ago, he broke the record for votes cast by a Jersey Senator: 8,375.
Since then, he's had stomach cancer and chemotherapy.
He came back from that.
Now, he's cast his 9,000th vote, in the affirmative for the 2012 defense authorization bill, an occasion marked on the Senate floor by a retrospective of his achievements from Harry Reid, and a quick assent from Mitch McConnell for the Republicans.
Thought you might like to see it. If you're wondering who hollers out, Aw-right Frank! (3:32 mark), that's none other than neighbor senator Chuck Schumer.
I've been Demonstrating ... yesterday told a reporter with the Huffington Post "I'm here because tax policy is unfair and energy policy is foolish and short sighted."
The real demand is for economic democracy. Political democracy is meaningless in the face of a non-democratic economy.
President Obama was a community organizer and professor of Constitutional Law - not an economist or an environmentalist. His biggest mistakes, I think, were hiring Geithner, Sommers, Bernake - men from Wall Street - and Stephen "Clean Coal" Chu, rather than economists like Krugman, Stiglitz, Costanza, Daly, and energy people like Lovins and McKibben. (Yes he hired Van Jones, but Jones is history.)
The "Extended Text" appears on Page 1 of a handout I have been distributing. I also sent it to Pres. Obama, Rep. Holt, and Senators Menendez and Lautenberg.
The fight over healthcare is heating up again and two New Jersey
Congressmen are taking up the fight to protect retirees.
New Jersey has over one million estimated retirees covered by
company-sponsored healthcare, but recently some companies have decided
to leave their retirees in the lurch.
Companies have been diminishing healthcare to retirees and last year
several major corporations threatened to outright cancel healthcare
when they went before Congress.
South Jersey Rep. Robert Andrews and North Jersey Rep. Steve Rothman
are collaborating on H.R. 1322, the Earned Retiree Healthcare Benefits
Protection Act of 2011.
The bi-partisan legislation prevents employers from stripping
post-retirement benefits from retirees after many years of dedication
to the company.
Now, 13,000+ member-strong IBEW Local 827 - based in East Windsor,
N.J. - is endorsing the legislation and calling on Sen. Robert
Menendez to sponsor the bill.
"This legislation is needed to protect those who made corporations
profitable today and is needed to keep taxpayer costs out of the
healthcare system under the Patient Protection & Accordable Care
Act," wrote William D. Huber, President and Business Manager of IBEW
Local 827 in a letter to Sen. Menendez.
The letter was co-signed by Edward Johnson, State Chairman and Hudson
Representative Retiree Committee for IBEW Local 827.
"We need to ensure that America's retirees are not casualties of
the national healthcare struggle," said New Jersey retiree Mike
McFadden, who worked at Verizon.
The bill is actively being pushed by ProtectSeniors.org, a D.C.-based
group that is pushing companies to honor their commitments to retired
workers.
"We merely want companies to live up to the financial commitments
they made," said Paul Miller of ProtectSeniors.Org. "Give us the
health benefits we earned and paid for over decades of loyal service."
Today's NY Times has an op-ed by Robert Barro, of the Hoover Institution and Harvard University. It's not surprising that someone from the Hoover Institution says "Austerity not Stimulus." But as Franklin D. Roosevelt proved during the Depression, while both business and government may be able to hire in times like these, ONLY the government is willing to hire. Therefore we need stimulus. The question is "Which stimulus?"
Because of the NJ Clean Energy Program, we went form 9 kilowatts of solar power to about 400 megawatts in the last 11 years. Suppose we expanded the NJ Clean Energy Program to put a 40 KW solar array on every school in NJ, and the US?
What would it cost? What would it buy?
For starters, taxpayers pay the electric bills of schools. So if new solar is cheaper than new coal or new nuclear then it seems like a good idea.
And what happens in an emergency?
Here's the letter I sent the Times, Pres. Obama, Rush Holt, and Senators Menendez and Lautenberg.
There's a Tea Party / Republican / Faux News talking point that all taxes are waste, that the government is incompetent, and all politicians are corrupt. If all politicians are corrupt, and you're a politician, aren't you saying "I'm Corrupt?" But beyond that ...
The Washington Post reported, on August 6, 2011, that John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, and the "Young Guns," their Republican comrades in the House of Representatives, PLANNED as far back as January, 2009 to use the debt ceiling to create a political crisis. It seems to have worked. The Republicans held fast, Obama and the Democrats blinked. The rating agency Standard & Poors, S&P, downgraded their rating of the credit-worthiness of the United States of America, President Obama's core supporters seem to be abandoning him. And the stock markets are plummeting - the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1000 points in 3 days.
Personally I don't think Johnson will run. It would be foolish from a marketing standpoint, and would put undue pressure on the team's players and coaches having to fend off questions from the media about whether or not they endorse their owner's candidacy.
Bob Menendez: Banking (chairs the Housing, Transportation, and Community Development subcommittee); Energy and Natural Resources; Finance; Foreign Relations (chairs the International Development and Foreign Assistance, Economic Affairs, and International Environmental Protection subcommittee)
Frank Lautenberg: Appropriations (chairs the Homeland Security subcommittee); Commerce, Science and Transportation (chairs the Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety and Security subcommittee); and Environment and Public Works (chairs the Superfund, Toxics, and Environmental Health, Chair subcommittee)
My organization, the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group (NJPIRG), recently released a report with the National Taxpayers Union (NTU) proposing $600 billion in federal budget cuts. The NTU is a group that often disagrees with us, and our goal was to create some early consensus on specific budget cuts that target waste, inefficiency, and corporate handouts in the federal government. The report is here.
Everyone knows the federal deficit is important. Yet polls like this show that the deficit continues to be a low priority for Americans.
President Obama's fiscal commission did not quite achieve the super majority vote required to prompt direct congressional action on implementing budget reform. This means that now, more than ever, it is critical for Americans (and New Jerseyans) to press their federal representatives to take serious action.
Yet New Jersey is struggling with many economic problems of its own, and it can be tough to look past city and state budget crises. Yet as long as we put off fixing the federal budget, we will continue to waste our tax dollars, and money that could be used for helpful services or creating solvency will end up in irresponsible subsidies or inefficient programs. What does the Blue Jersey community think about this? Have any of you experienced direct consequences stemming from our federal budget deficit? How can we make the federal deficit a New Jersey priority?
On June 10th, we all celebrated the defeat of the Murkowski resolution, which would have gutted the EPA's ability to regulate carbon dioxide pollution. Why we needed to defeat Murkowski was explained well by NRDC Action Fund Executive Director, Peter Lehner, who wrote the following prior to the vote:
EPA's proactive lead in greenhouse gas regulation is a critical aspect of the effort to reduce our rampant, destabilizing, and destructive dependence on foreign and offshore oil. While the endangerment finding does not, in itself, prescribe regulations, it provides the legal basis for critical standards: EPA's proposed CAFE efficiency standard for light-duty vehicles is projected to save over 455 million barrels per year, and an anticipated standard for heavy-duty vehicles will save billions more. Stripping EPA of its authority to implement these protections would increase our nation's dependence on oil and send hundreds of billions of dollars overseas. We cannot afford this big step backward, especially as we watch more oil gush into the Gulf each day.
In the end, the Senate didn't take that "big step backward" on June 10th, as the Murkowski resolution failed by a 47-53 vote. Many of us probably figured that was the end of this issue, and that the Senate would now move on to passing comprehensive, clean energy and climate legislation. Unfortunately, as is often the case in Washington, DC, it isn't that simple (let alone logical).
Today, clean air and public health are once again under an assault that constitutes, essentially, "Murkowski Part II." The Wall Street Journal reported on June 22:
As U.S. Senate lawmakers attempt to determine the fate of energy legislation, an influential Democrat is boosting efforts to suspend a controversial greenhouse-gas rule passed earlier this year by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
After introducing a bill to impose a two-year halt on the new EPA rule, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat from coal-rich West Virginia, is now working to round up supporters for his legislation.
It should go without saying that this is completely unacceptable. As we all know, the public was outraged at Senator Murkowski's Big Oil Bailout bill. They understood that this moved the country backward, not forward, and that it was exactly the wrong way to go given the energy and environmental challenges we face. Through all our efforts, our phone calls and emails (and blog posts and tweets, etc.), we helped to kill Murkowski Part I. Now, unfortunately, Sen. Jay Rockefeller is pushing Murkowski Part II, yet there's far less attention being paid to this effort than to the Murkowski's EPA Castration Resolution Part I. People have a lot of other things on their minds, and they thought this fight was over back in June. But, once they find out that this effort is baaaaack, like a monster in a cheesy horror movie, they are not going to respond positively.
Of course, why would the public - which overwhelmingly supports taking action to promote clean energy and deal with climate change - ever respond positively to a proposal aimed at throwing away one of our key tools to cut pollution and protect public health? And why would they respond positively now of all times, as oil continues to spew into the Gulf of Mexico, as record heat waves scorch the United States, and as climate science is strengthened every day that goes by? Last but not least, why would they support an effort to protect the corporate polluters and not all of us who are being hurt by that pollution?
The bottom line is simple: instead of wasting its time on legislation that will only move the country backwards - towards dirty energy forever - the Senate should be busy passing a bill that moves the country forward towards a bright future of green energy, clean tech jobs, energy security and climate protection. Once our Senators hear that message loud and clear from all of us, Rockefeller's Murkowski Part II will be rejected by the Senate, just as Murkowski Part I was before it.
Unless you are going to plant cryptic clues on album covers and in song lyrics and you're the most famous band ever, it ain't funny:
U.S. Capitol Police are investigating hoax e-mails to news outlets and blogs reporting that Sen. Frank Lautenberg and other senators had died.
Some websites reported on the deaths Tuesday of Lautenberg, D-N.J., and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. The incorrect information continued to be retransimitted via Twitter late Wednesday, long after original sources had corrected it.
A San Francisco television station reported Monday that a hoax e-mail Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., had died. A spokesman said a similar e-mail Tuesday described the death of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas.
Interesting that (as usual), there is the token Republican amid a slew of Democrats just to show the fairness and balancedness - so asshattery is "bipartisan".
And for the "can't you take a joke" crew of dimwits, that would require the joke in the first place. This is just stupid - and of course the comments section of the NorthJersey article show the true colors of those on the right.
Wonder what would happen if anyone on the left said or did this about Bush, Cheney or Christie.....I doubt that this wouldn't be the nonstop 24/7 story of the talking meatstick circuit.
The Record's Herb Jackson reports that U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg has been selected to replace the late Robert Byrd as chair of the Appropriation Committee's Subcommittee on Homeland Security.
In assuming the chairmanship, Lautenberg joins the ranks of the College of Cardinals, the powerful group of subcommittee heads who control spending measures in both the House and Senate. At 86, he is the oldest member of the upper house.
Both my wife and I are CPAs, and we have talked about this one particular tax loophole that she deals with in her line of work called "carried interest". Without boring you, "carried interest" relates to income earned by hedge fund or private equity fund managers for basically doing a good job of managing their funds - you know - performing services as a fund manager.
The kicker here though is that this "carried interest" - which can be a substantial amount of money - is taxed at 15% rates as a capital gain from investments instead of regular tax rates (most likely 39.6% for this type of income) that people like you and me pay on income we earn for doing our jobs.
Now, obviously there is a lot more to it, but both my wife and I agree on this being ridiculous, as does nearly everyone who knows about this, even probably including many people who benefit from this ridiculous tax loophole - even if they won't admit it. But basically, hedge fund managers are able to get extremely large bonus type payments and have them treated as if they were investment income and pay less than half the tax on it.
Closing this loophole has been attempted a number of times in the past - as recently as December 2009. The House passed the "extenders bill" with a provision eliminating this loophole, but it didn't make it through the Senate. And now, the House is poised to pass the Jobs bill with the carried interest provision in it, while the Senate is going to take up the jobs bill as soon as the next week or two.
Baucus and House Ways and Means Chairman Sandy Levin (D-Mich.) agreed in principle two weeks ago that the spending would be offset by closing the loophole. They set about working out the details, but have encountered stiff resistance from within the party. In the Senate, John Kerry (D-Mass.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Bob Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) have all expressed a variety of reservations about paying for the jobs measures on the backs of fund managers. On the House side, high-ranking Democrats have spoken out in two separate closed-door caucus meetings this week against taking the vote against the hedge fund crowd.
"I have, overall, a concern about the carried interest loophole as it relates to both characterization rates and implementation period and I think that we can derive revenue that we want and should need, but I think there is a different way to do it," said Menendez on Tuesday. A Menendez aide said that he wants to ensure that the real estate market is not harmed and that businesses don't lose access to venture capital.
This could generate $20 billion - not to mention level the playing field for the middle class. A good analogy here would be for me to declare that the work I do is really "an investment" in my accounting firm, so the wages I am paid for my services aren't really wages, but an investment that I should be able to receive favorable tax treatment for.
Other than the "just think of the poor hedge fund managers" cry, with the economy in such bad shape and a class warfare act being waged right here in NJ by Governor Christie, it is somewhat baffling why someone who has been so good on so many other issues would be looking to keep a huge tax break for those who need it the least and quite frankly, don't even deserve this tax break on the merits of the income it represents.
Senator Frank Lautenberg returned to Washington following his recent health scare and is tired of hearing speculation about who will take his seat when he is no longer in it:
"There are insidious monsters who want my seat," he says jokingly of speculation about who might replace him if he died in office. A Republican is governor, so the issue has national implications. "That speculation was a little too early."
I can see the Senator isn't mincing words now that he has returned.
The focus in NJ has been on the underfunding of the pension plan by NJ not putting in the state's annual contribution. But that's not the main problem. In a comment not picked up by the main media last week, Assemblyman Greenwald said that even if all the contributions had been made, the pension fund would still be underfunded because of the poor investment returns. Now, NJ's pension fund assume an 8.25% rate of return (I believe), which it hasn't gotten. But other states with similar assumptions for the future have been revising them, which only causes a much larger deficit in the pension fund. The full story is the lead story in today's NYTimes.
"I'm real happy with the work we can do as private citizens," Crowley said, referring to himself in the plural, as Menendez often does. "I care a lot about a lot of public policy issues, especially health care, but I have no plans to run for public office." Could that change? "Maybe someday, but no time soon,"
He didn't quite close the door on a potential in public life. Crowley has a good story to tell and the financial means to assist in telling it. In addition, he will get a good deal of exposure to the voters in New Jersey as his movie hits theaters. So while I respect what he's saying, I'll believe he doesn't run for public office when I see it to be honest.
The race to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat is very close in Massachusetts. Political wire says the poll average is a dead heat and Nate Silver says the race is a tossup. Now the New Jersey Democratic State Committee is blasting supporters soliciting assistance to make a difference in Massachusetts:
You can call voters in Massachusetts and help Martha Coakley continue Senator Ted Kennedy's remarkable legacy.
As Massachusetts' first woman senator, Martha Coakley will help advance Kennedy's legacy - fighting for equal rights, a strong economy, and our families and communities. Without her vote, health care won't happen.
They're using mybarackobama.com for people to call and remind voters to get out and vote on Tuesday. Democrats never expected this race to be a contest and now they're doing everything they can to hold onto the seat in this special election. Bill Clinton was there campaigning for Coakley on Saturday and President Obama was there this afternoon. This will be viewed in the context of Bob Menendez and the DSCC as well, so no doubt he wants all the help they can get at this point. I'll put the full email from Chairman Cryan below the fold.
The news this week that North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan and Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd will not run again for re-election only complicates things for Senator Menendez in his role leading the DSCC. The Dodd news could actually prove to make the seat more secure for Democrats, but the Dorgan seat will be an uphill climb to hold. Here's what the Senator had to say about things yesterday:
DSCC chair Robert Menendez, the chief of Dem efforts to hold the Senate, acknowledged that the party faces a "challenge" next year, and declined to predict whether Dems would hold their super-majority.
But Menendez pushed back hard on the emerging media meme that the Dem retirements spell doom for the party, arguing that the GOP is defending six open Senate seats. Menendez also refused to concede that Byron Dorgan's Senate seat is a certain pickup for the GOP, as many argue, vowing a vigorous contest for it, though he conceded that Rep Earl Pomeroy, the most sought after Dem candidate, wasn't running.
Along with the Dorgan and Dodd seats for the Democrats, the Senator had more to say about the prospects for the GOP maintaining their seats:
"I would say the optics of having six Republican open seats is more significant," Menendez insisted, when asked to comment on the Dems' chances in the wake of the news about the retirements. "They have to run the table to be even at the end of the day,"
He added five of the races in those states - Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Kansas - are "very competitive," and vowed that Dems would benefit from the "bloody" GOP primaries underway in them.
They do have to run the table, but the climate may be a difficult one for Democrats to compete in. Follow me below the fold because there is plenty more to look at.
In politics, of course, 36 months is the equivalent of what scientists call "geologic time." Anything can happen between now and then. And it looks like it already has. Dobbs, sounding like every other "I voted for it before I voted against it" mush-mouth politician, declared himself in favor of an amnesty program for illegal immigrants this week - a complete reversal of his long-held public position. He also told viewers of the Spanish-speaking network Telemundo that "I am one of your greatest friends."
This from a man once described as illegal immigrants' No. 1 enemy, a man who once accused undocumented Mexican workers of bringing leprosy into the United States and who regularly railed on his program about how illegal immigrants threatened the nation's economy, security and well-being. His supporters must have whiplash this week.
They continued:
Flip-flop or not, Dobbs, who owns a horse farm in Sussex County, will have his work cut for him should he decide to run for the Senate. For one thing, he's an independent and the electoral system does not favor independent candidates. For another, a Dobbs spokesman said this week that Dobbs really wants to be president, but considers a brief stint as a U.S. senator a necessary intermediate step. His opposition researchers should have fun with that morsel of opportunism.
Flip-flopper. Opportunist.
Dobbs would fit right in with Jersey politics.
Ouch. And thats the reviews from the Asbury Park Press. With friends like that...
Assemblyman John McKeon, D-Essex, has proposed legislation that would effectively take away Gov. Chris Christie's ability to pick a new U.S. senator of his choosing, should, for instance, Sen. Frank Lautenberg not complete his term.
Lautenberg will turn 86 four days after Christie's Jan. 19th inaugural, and that has raised concerns among some Democrats that he might have to step down for health reasons, or even pass away, while Republicans are holding the keys to Drumthwacket. That would give Christie the ability to appoint a U.S. senator on a temporary basis, altering the balance in Washington in the short-term and giving that appointed senator an incumbent's edge in a campaign.
A synopsis of McKeon's bill (A4271) says the appointee would have to be of the same political party as the person who vacates the office. The full text of the bill does not yet exist, and the legislation is apparently still in flux. It's not clear if a governor would have to pick a candidate off a list provided by a state political party or if a governor would have wider latitude in picking a replacement.
Here is the synopsis of McKeon's bill according to the Legislature's website:
Requires Governor to make temporary appointment when vacancy occurs in U.S. Senate; provides appointee must be of same political party as person who vacates office.
There are some people who feel a change like this should have been made long before it came to this point. Jeff Gardner expressed that sentiment when we discussed this issue on Blue Jersey radio recently. Then there is another camp that views a bill of this matter as an afront to the sitting US Senator. The timing of the bill leads people to believe this is less about the merits of a change and more about maintaining control of a seat. I haven't seen anything about a Senate counterpart to McKeon's bill being introduced yet, but we'll watch out for that. Where do you come down on this change?
Updated by Jason: I'm told the full text of the Assembly bill appear after it is introduced next Thursday.
