Albio Sires

In any political weather, the name “Vas” on a campaign sign would inspire a particular dynamism, as in “you go” in the Spanish familiar form - and so the name went for 18 years as the formidable Joe Vas, Perth Amboy’s first Puerto Rican mayor, ran the waterfront town.

And yet now, nearly a year after he lost reelection locally, the danger for Assemblyman Joe Vas – same man, different title at stake - may be the inclination among a majority of committee people in this scrunch of blue collar and maritime Middlesex towns called the 19th District, to simply say “scram.”

Battered, Vas nevertheless doesn’t think it’s going to happen, and even appeared indomitable today, moments before heading into a caucus meeting of the Assembly Democrats, where he serves as deputy majority leader.

“Ask any committee member about me – not someone on the outside looking in and trying to rattle the cage – ask them about me and my district office,” he said.

Convinced the committee will see it his way at a party convention on March 25th at the Forge, Vas intends to stare down a cross-river challenge from South Amboy Mayor John T. O’Leary. Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Sayreville) will also screen for one of two seats, but by all accounts, the powerful chair of the Assembly Transportation Committee should have little problem securing party support.

The same can’t be said of Vas – who’s had his fights, Barry Adler two years ago and Arlene Friscia before that, not to mention his first run for mayor when he came in as the underdog – who may yet be in his toughest.

Read More >

Republican Norman Roth, a 40-year-old lawyer for the Jersey City Board of Education, came with 57 votes of winning a seat in Congress in 1956, but fortunately for the incumbent, Jersey City came through with a few extra votes for the Democratic incumbent after the polls had closed.  This was one of the closest House races in New Jersey history.

Roth's bid to unseat U.S. Rep. Alfred Sieminski, 45, benefitted greatly by the coattails of President Dwight Eisenhower, who carried Hudson County in his re-election campaign against Adlai Stevenson.  Two years earlier, Sieminski, a veteran of World War II and Korea who went to Princeton and Harvard Law School, won a third term in Congress with an easy 61%-27% victory over Roth. 

In another Hudson district, Republican Vincent Dellay upset Democratic U.S. Rep. James Tumulty by a 52%-46% margin.  Tummulty was the nephew of Joseph Tumulty, a former Assemblyman who was Woodrow Wilson's Chief of Staff (in those days, the job was called Secretary) in the Governor's office and in the White House.

Seeking his first term in 1954, the 41-year-old Tummulty, a former Assembly Minority Leader who later became Secretary to the Mayor of Jersey City, beat Dellay, 62%-35%.  Dellay, 47, was state Treasury Department auditor,

Hoping for a second term as the Congressman from Hudson County, Dellay switched parties; the Hudson County Democratic Organization denied him party support and instead sent 50-year-old Dominick Daniels, a Jersey City Municipal Court Judge, to Congress. 

Read More >

As he endorsed Christopher Christie for the 2009 GOP gubernatorial nomination on Wednesday, former Governor Thomas Kean, Sr. reminded reporters that the only other time he involved himself in a Republican Primary was when his son ran for the U.S. Senate three years ago.   That's not completely accurate.  During his second term as Governor, Kean went to Hudson County to endorse Albio Sires, a Republican activist from West New York who had been recruited by state Republicans to challenge U.S. Rep. Frank Guarini (D-Jersey City) in 1986.  Sires was facing a primary challenge from one of two Republicans on the Hudson County Board of Freeholders.

At the time, Republicans believed they were looking at a possible political realignment in Hudson County.  They had won two Freeholder seats in 1984 and four Assembly seats in 1985.  Ronald Reagan carried Hudson in 1984, and Kean won every town in the county when he ran for re-election in 1985.  The GOP was playing heavily in non-partisan municipal races that year, and was counting on electing a Republican Mayor of Union City, where Assemblyman Ronald Dario (R-Union City) was heading a local ticket - financed by the GOP - that included a young lawyer named Robert Menendez.

Read More >

U.S. Rep. Albio Sires (D-West New York) was named Third Vice Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) today.  Sires will serve as Vice Chair for Member Participation and Outreach and will focus on a plan to use Democratic Congressmen as surrogates in targeted districts and outreach to interest groups.

Going into the 2010 midterm elections, there are 83 Democrats holding Republicans districts and six Republicans in Democratic districts.

 "Congressman Sires is a strategic thinker who has the respect and relationships within our Caucus and with our allies to encourage the active political participation of our Members throughout the cycle," said U.S. Rep. Christopher Van Hollen (D-MD), the DCCC Chairman.

Read More >

Robert Menendez continues to be a trailblazer: the first hispanic Mayor of Union City, the first hispanic N.J. State Senator, the first hispanic Congressman from New Jersey, the first hispanic to serve in the House Democratic leadership, the first hispanic United States Senator from New Jersey, the first hispanic to win a statewide nomination and general election in New Jersey, and now the first hispanic to serve as Chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Read More >

Today, in his first major vote as an incoming member of the U.S. House of Representatives, John Adler is expected to support Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) for Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, according to sources with close ties to Camden County Democrat.  Waxman is challenging longtime chairman John Dingell, an 82-year-old Michigan Democrat who has served in Congress since 1955. 

Read More >

Now it seems trendy to run for Congress, lose, then spend a lot of years in state government before finally making it to Washington.  In 2006, Albio Sires won an open House seat twenty years after his first attempt.  Sires had challenged U.S. Rep. Frank Guarini as a Republican in 1986; he later won local office in West New York, and after switching parties in 1999, he beat an incumbent Assemblyman in the Democratic primary.  He became Assembly Speaker after the 2001 election, and went to Congress after Bob Menendez joined the United States Senate.

Both of New Jersey's freshmen Congressman had previously lost House races.  John Adler ran against Jim Saxton in 1990 and lost 60%-40%.  A year later, despite one of the two biggest Republican landslides in state political history, he ousted four-term GOP State Sen. Lee Laskin.  Leonard Lance first ran for Congress in 1996, when Richard Zimmer gave up his seat to run for U.S. Senate; he finished third in the GOP primary, behind Michael Pappas and John Bennett. Lance moved from the Assembly to the Satate Senate in 2001, and became Minority Leader in 2004.

Read More >

JERSEY CITY – Although the pro-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Il.) crowd in the student center of New Jersey City University was juked with polls showing their candidate in possession of a double digit lead in Jersey, they supplied no demonstration of shock and awe support three days before Election Day.

Waiting for keynoters New York Gov. David Paterson and Gov. Jon Corzine, local politicians warmed up the proudly attentive audience.

“If you don’t stand for this man (Obama), you don’t stand for anything,” state Sen. Sandra Cunningham (D-Hudson) cried. “Get up. Get up!”

The crowd jolted to its feet.

Read More >

It’s not exactly a surprise, but the incumbent Congressmen in safe districts who have statewide aspirations tend to have the largest war chests.

Take, for instance, U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch).  His Republican opponent, former Judge Robert McLeod, didn’t even raise the $5,000 that would require him to fill out a report with the Federal Election Commission.  But Pallone is raising and spending money anyway, raking in $302,139 last quarter for a total of $2.18 million this election cycle.  He has $3.36 million on hand – the largest war chest in Congress – and spent $304,000 this quarter.

That money is not being spent against McLeod.  The expenditures listed in the FEC report includes a $189,015 cable television ad buy.  The commercial, which began on Tuesday, is playing all over the state north of Interstate 195, in places well beyond Pallone’s district.

Read More >

Sources say that U.S. Rep. Albio Sires will endorse Mark Smith for Mayor of Bayonne next week. Sires' support of Smith isn't a surprise: the Hudson County Democratic Organization is supporting Smith in the November non-partisan special election to replace Joseph Doria, and Sires is closely allied with the HCDO.  And Sires staffer Erica Daugherty has been working hard to help Smith win the mayoralty.

Read More >