Morning News Digest: November 5, 2009

With the PolitickerNJ.com Wake-Up Call e-mailed to your inbox, phone, Blackberry or PDA first thing in the morning, you can get a rundown of New Jersey's top political headlines. Sign up to get the Wake-Up Call delivered every morning.

Christie says first executive order will freeze unfunded mandates and regulations

Gov.-elect Christopher Christie says he's not ready to immediately battle the Democratic Legislature during their lame duck session, but he is prepared to speak out if they take action that he disagrees with. "Am I willing to fight? Of course I am. You've watched me for eight years now. I'm not a Wallflower," Christie said at a press conference at the Robert Treat Academy, a Newark charter school run by Stephen Adubato, Sr. Christie said he'll look at the Legislature with "an optimistic point of view." "I think the members of the Legislature understand that people have voted for change," Christie said. The voters voted for it. So for now, we'll have to engage in the compromise that will occur always when people have differing views." "I'm optimistic that whatever the views may be in both houses of the legislature, they'll be ready to cooperate," said Christie. The newly-elected Republican governor said he did the right thing by not releasing a detailed economic plan. (Friedman, PolitickerNJ)

http://www.politickernj.com/matt-friedman/34816/christie-says-first-executive-order-will-freeze-unfunded-madates-and-regulations

On a bad night, Dems pull off huge win in 1st District

If there was one bright spot for New Jersey Democrats last night, it was in District 1. In this southernmost district in the state, incumbents Nelson Albano (D-Vineland) and Matt Milam (D-Vineland) held on against Republicans Michael Donohue and John McCann by a relatively comfortable margin. The two were thought to be the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents this year, since they represent a traditionally Republican district that is dominated by Cape May County - where Christopher Christie did especially well. Perhaps considered most damning for their chances was the absence of state Sen. Jeff Van Drew (D-Dennis), whose coattails helped get Albano elected in 2005 and Milam in 2007, from the ballot. But Van Drew was anything but absent from the campaign. He played a crucial role in it, folding his two running mates into his independent brand and campaigning as if he were on the ballot himself. (Friedman, PolitickerNJ)

http://www.politickernj.com/matt-friedman/34820/bad-night-democrats-pull-huge-win-1st-district

Despite victories, Passaic GOP feud still lingers

Ask leaders of the two Republican factions in Passaic County how they swept the county office elections last night and you get two different interpretations. Passaic County Republican Chairman Scott Rumana (R-Wayne), who's also an assemblyman, attributed the win to the dominant Democratic Party losing touch with the county's residents. "You have citizens in Passaic County who have been disenfranchised by the Democratic Party," he said. "We've been pulling in people who were not part of the party for many years, and that's really been a big, big help in this process." In a stunning upset, Republicans beat three Democrats - including the incumbent freeholder director, Tahesha Way - and won the county clerk seat. Rumana said that his party's "team building" approach to leadership also played a role. (Friedman, PolitickerNJ)

http://www.politickernj.com/matt-friedman/34822/despite-victories-passaic-gop-feud-lingers

Paterson’s gubernatorial numbers barely differ from 2005

New Jersey's third largest city and now on the brink of a mayoral election next year - delivered the same voter turnout for Gov. Jon Corzine that he received four years ago in his first bid for governor. These results are unofficial and don't include provisionals: Corzine received 16,038 votes in the Silk City, to Republican candidate (now Gov.-elect) Chris Christie's 2,040. Those numbers almost mirror Corzine's 2005 performance against Mercer buisnessman Doug Forrester: 17,000 to 1,600 votes. Here's this year's Paterson breakdown in a city that fast is headed toward what sources say will be at least a three-way 2010 slugfest between incumbent Mayor Jose "Joey" Torres (a close ally of Corzine's), Council President Jeffrey Jones (who endorsed Corzine after President Barack Obama's presence here increasingly nationalized the race) and either At-Large Councilman Rigo Rodriguez or 5th Ward Councilman Julio Tavarez (allies, either of whom will engage his base Dominican community in the city). (Pizarro, PolitickerNJ)

http://www.politickernj.com/max/34823/patersons-gubernatorial-numbers-re...

Christie pledges fight on taxes and business rule

Governor-elect Christopher J. Christie of New Jersey, basking in praise from Republicans who hailed him as the party’s new star, said Wednesday that he would move quickly to suspend new regulations on business and find ways to lower crushing property taxes, the nation’s highest. Mr. Christie also said he would enforce a stricter cap on increases in spending at the local level — the primary driver of the rising property taxes that have set off anger among voters. In Newark, the governor-elect sought to show that he would make urban education a priority, traveling to a charter school and pressing his argument that children in the poorest cities were being held back by teachers’ unions blocking school vouchers and merit pay. Democrats have accused Republicans of ignoring the state’s ailing cities. “Other than taxes and funding issues, the most important issue to me is fixing our urban education problem,” he said. “I am not going to allow public school children to be cheated by public schools.” (Halbfinger, New York Times)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/nyregion/05christie.html?_r=1

The voters barked. Now what?

The dog finally barked. Now we’ll see if it can bite. If ever an Election Day had a clear theme in the cities and suburbs outside New York it was this one: property taxes. Contemplating the election landscape and the region’s high property tax burden a month ago, Richard Nathan, who was retiring as co-director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government at the State University of New York at Albany mused: “When is this dog going to bark? And the numbers make you think it’s going to be soon.” On Tuesday night Christopher J. Christie became the first New Jersey Republican elected statewide in 12 years. In Westchester, Rob Astorino defeated the county executive, Andrew J. Spano, a Democrat who had served 12 years. In Nassau, County Executive Thomas R. Suozzi, a Democrat, was in a dead heat with the challenger Edward P. Mangano, and Republicans had recaptured the County Legislature. The sounds heard in all three were the barks, yelps and growls of angry voters who had had enough. “Clearly the theme of this campaign was property taxes, and this is a referendum on taxes,” Mr. Astorino said on Tuesday on the kind of night Westchester Republicans have seldom had since the era when Don Draper was taking the train from Ossining to Grand Central. Once solidly Republican, Westchester has nearly twice as many registered Democrats as Republicans. (Applebome, New York Times)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/nyregion/05towns.html NJ

Gov-elect Christie says he will lower property taxes via spending checks, sharing services

Gov.-elect Chris Christie said today he will lower New Jersey’s notoriously high property taxes, not with a "silver bullet," but by following the deliberate approach voters approved — a mix of spending checks and more shared services. "I’ve told everybody right from the beginning that this is not a silver bullet issue," Christie told reporters after a public event today in Newark, his first as governor-elect. "I refused during the campaign to come up with some type of slick, packaged proposal that people were going to say, ‘Oh, wow, that’s a miracle, there’s going to be no pain involved.’" Instead, Christie’s plan for reducing property taxes targets government spending in general. The hundreds of town councils and schools districts in New Jersey where most of the money generated by local property taxes is spent are going to be held more accountable, he said. The former U.S. Attorney said he will enforce hard spending caps at the local level, while also freeing up municipalities from having to pay for expensive policies mandated by lawmakers in Trenton. (Reitmeyer, Star Ledger)

http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2009/11/nj_gov-elect_christie_says_he.html

Gov-elect Christie urges bipartisanship, talks education in Newark

A day after becoming the first Republican in a dozen years to capture the Statehouse, Gov.-elect Chris Christie today went to the Democratic bastion of Newark and urged bipartisanship in the wake of a divisive campaign."This administration is going to be about what works, and that’s the signal I’m trying to send," said Christie, who will inherit a Democratic Legislature when he is sworn in Jan. 19. "This stuff of Republicans and Democrats thinking we have to be mutually exclusive has just got to be over, because the problems here are too big." As national GOP leaders hyped victories in New Jersey and Virginia as a rebuke of President Obama and a boost for the minority party in Washington, Christie refused to draw conclusions beyond the borders of his own troubled state. At the same time, he called his four-point victory over Gov. Jon Corzine an endorsement of his smaller-government philosophy. (Heininger, Star Ledger)

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/nj_governor-elect_christie_urg.html

Day after win, Christie highlights reform

Gov.-elect Chris Christie, the newly minted Republican chief executive of normally solidly Democratic New Jersey, made a visit to a Newark charter school the first official stop in his transition to power. The raspy-voiced, sleep-deprived Christie said he chose to make his first gubernatorial stop at the Robert Treat Academy to draw attention to success at the school and emphasize his commitment to charters and city school reform. "Other than tax and budget issues, the next most important issue to me is fixing our urban education system. I've said that over and over and over again in the campaign," Christie said. New Jersey since 1996 has had charter schools, which are alternative public schools that now enroll around 22,000 students in the state. But Christie, in his campaign, criticized Gov. Jon S. Corzine for not doing more to expand them. The governor-elect says charter schools often get better results for less money. (Symons, Gannett)

http://www.app.com/article/20091104/NEWS/91104136/1024/POLITICS/Day+after+win++Christie+highlights+reform+ Gov

Corzine’s reelection bid abandoned by mounting White House concerns

It was the great urban legend of the campaign: With the White House worried, a frustrated Gov. Jon Corzine was having second thoughts and came close to aborting his re-election bid. Now, Senate President Richard Codey says it happened. In an interview, Codey (D-Essex) detailed a series of summer phone calls, meetings and the results of a confidential poll that nearly threw New Jersey’s governor’s race into the type of turmoil last seen when then-Sen. Robert Torricelli dropped his re-election bid in final weeks of the 2002 campaign. Codey made his comments hours after Corzine conceded defeat in Tuesday’s election. He previously refused to discuss it, saying he did not want to affect the outcome of the race. His account was confirmed by other key players, including Torricelli, who advised Corzine during the campaign. Corzine’s camp and the White House declined to comment. (Margolin, Star Ledger)

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/democratic_leaders_nearly_aban.html

Republicans benefited most from election

Political change swept through Bergen County for the second straight year Tuesday night, but this time the Republicans were, for the most part, the beneficiaries. Republican victories in towns throughout Bergen County and on the freeholder board are likely to translate into shifts in how some local governments and both county political parties conduct their business. “Our party needs to do a little introspection, analyze the results, figure out what happened, why it happened and what to do,” said state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, who lost in a bid to be lieutenant governor as Governor Corzine’s running mate. “Next year is here before you know it in politics.” When next year does arrive, the Bergen County freeholder board will no longer be made up entirely of Democrats. The councils of Paramus, Englewood Cliffs and North Arlington all will have shifted from Democratic majorities to Republican control. And both parties will begin strategizing for next November’s county executive and freeholder races, which are likely to be more closely contested than they have been in recent years. (Gartland, The Record)

http://www.northjersey.com/news/politics/nj_politics/Republicans_benefited_most_from_election.html

Election upsets alter political landscape

It was politics as usual in many local and legislative races as incumbents prevailed, but challengers' victories in Hopewell Township, Trenton, Lawrence and Hopewell Borough could lead to some serious shake-ups. In Hopewell Township, the approximately 180-vote victory of Republican newcomer Kim Johnson over current Democratic committee member David Dafilou could mean the end of an era for five-term Democratic Mayor Vanessa Sandom, who has served on the committee since 2001. Johnson's win changes the makeup of the five-person committee from a 3-2 Democratic majority to a 3-2 Republican majority, and Sandom herself said yesterday she's certain she will not be re-appointed mayor by the new, Republican-led committee. "I'm sure I won't be re-appointed mayor," she said. "The mayor will be one of the Republicans." However, Sandom did stress the nonpartisan nature of the committee, saying a shift in the political majority would not necessarily usher in a committee with wildly differing viewpoints. (Duffy, Newhouse)

http://www.nj.com/news/times/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-18/125740353827250.xml&coll=5

Gov Corzine hurt by scant support in Democratic strongholds

One of the earliest signs Tuesday that things weren’t going well for Gov. Jon Corzine came from Woodbridge, a Democratic stronghold in northern Middlesex County that had been Jim McGreevey’s launching pad to the governorship. The township had been tough for Corzine all along — something on display earlier in the campaign when Democratic Mayor John McCormac allowed himself to be photographed with Republican Chris Christie at a parade. Then, on Election Day, McCormac and other Democratic allies were not out hustling for votes for the governor. Instead, they were having lunch at Jose Tejas, the Tex-Mex restaurant on Route 1 in the township. By the time the voting machines were opened just after 8 p.m., it was clear there was blood on the floor. Christie had taken Woodbridge by a 51 percent to 42 percent margin. The news for Corzine was just as bad in Sayreville and elsewhere, as towns long loyal to the Democrats fell like dominoes. Places solidly for Corzine four years earlier were turning away, or worse — not turning out at all. (Sherman/Margolin, Star Ledger)

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/gov_corzine_hurt_by_scant_supp.html

Mulshine: Christie owes the ‘burbs,’ but will he pay them back?

So much for that urban strategy. The Chris Christie campaign strategy was based on keeping Jon Corzine's margins down in the urban areas. His strategist, Mike Duhaime, famously stated in June, "You'll know if we won on election night not by how much we win Ocean and Sussex by, but how much do we lose Hudson, Essex and Camden by.'' By that standard, Christie lost. He got beat by Corzine in Hudson, Essex and Camden counties almost as badly as fellow Republican Doug Forrester did in 2005. Where Christie won was in the suburbs and nowhere more than in Ocean County, where he piled up a massive 70,000-vote edge on Corzine. He got a 20,000-vote advantage in Sussex. The other huge winner for Christie was suburban Monmouth County, where he ran up a 64,000-vote margin on the Democrat. And he also scored in the suburbs of Middlesex County, negating the usual Democratic advantage there. As for Hudson, Essex and Camden, Corzine's vote totals were down only slightly from his 2005 margins. (Mulshine, Star Ledger)

http://blog.nj.com/njv_paul_mulshine/2009/11/christie_owes_the_burbs_big_bu.html

Menendez will feel heat from new gov

T he Democratic spilled blood is starting to congeal following Republican candidate Chris Christie's victory over Gov. Jon Corzine on Tuesday. The Hudson County Democratic Organization leaders claim they met their 47,000-vote plurality goal. The truth is that they needed to raise the bar. Christie got more than 29,000 votes, or 27 percent of Hudson County's vote, and Corzine received more than 76,000, or about 69 percent of the vote. Four years ago, Corzine garnered more than 87,000 votes, or 75 percent of the vote, and the GOP's Doug Forrester netted nearly 26,000 votes, or 22 percent of the total. The HCDO mustered 11,000 fewer votes this time. In the Hudson Dems' defense, vote totals from Bergen, Gloucester and Middlesex counties were a disaster for Corzine. (Torres, Jersey Journal)

http://www.nj.com/columns/jjournal/index.ssf?/base/columns-0/125740692499530.xml&coll=3

Can work with Christie, 3 Dems say

State Sen. Nicholas Sacco knows what it's like to work with a Republican governor. The 32nd District Democrat, who is also North Bergen's mayor, served under Gov. Christine Todd Whitman from 1994 to 2001. "You had to learn to work through it," he said yesterday. "It was very difficult to get bills through, but some major legislation did get through." Sacco was successful in lobbying for the creation of Urban Enterprise Zones and expanding the use of DNA testing in criminal cases. The Democratic-controlled Legislature will again have to work with a Republican governor as former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie prepares to take office in January. Christie defeated Gov. Jon S. Corzine 1,148,800 votes to 1,048,827 statewide. Corzine won Hudson County, but lost several other counties he had won in 2005, including Atlantic, Burlington, Gloucester, Middlesex and Salem. (Hayes, Jersey Journal)

http://www.nj.com/news/jjournal/index.ssf?/base/news-4/125740693899530.xml&coll=3

With the PolitickerNJ.com Wake-Up Call e-mailed to your inbox, phone, Blackberry or PDA first thing in the morning, you can get a rundown of New Jersey's top political headlines. Sign up to get the Wake-Up Call delivered every morning.