Albio Sires

Jersey City Mayor and Hudson County Democratic Chairman Jerramiah Healy and Assemblyman/Union City Mayor Brian Stack have agreed upon a peace treaty that seems to unite a party that was deeply divided just a few months ago.

Healy went to Union City yesterday for a one-on-one meeting with Stack, who won the Democratic State Senate nomination in the 33rd district with 75% of the vote against a candidate backed by the HCDO. Healy, who didn't want war in the first place, and Stack have agreed to avoid contested primaries in June 2008.

That means freshman Congressman Albio Sires can seek re-election with the support of both Healy and Stack, making him the strong favorite to win re-election to a second term. 

Washington, D.C.

Freshman Rep. Albio Sires, the former Assembly Speaker, may avoid a primary challengeJersey City Councilman Steven Fulop put the speculation that he will wage a primary challenge against freshman Congressman Albio Sires to bed today.

“I can tell you unequivocally that I’m not doing it,” said Fulop. “It’s not practical, and being realistic there are more things I’d like to do on the municipal level…. It’s just not about climbing the political ladder.”

There has been talk in political circles that the Hudson County Democratic Organization would field Fulop, a constant critic of the group, to take on Sires so that Fulop would not run for Jersey City Mayor against incumbent Jerramiah Healy, who chairs the HCDO. Sires is a supporter of Union City Mayor/Assemblyman/State Senate candidate Brian Stack, a rival political boss currently warring with Healy’s organization.

Washington, D.C. – Today, Congressman Albio Sires released the following statement in response to President Bush’s veto of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program:

At the last Jersey City Municipal Council meeting, Ward E Councilman Steve Fulop did not get a warm reception. That’s not unusual for Fulop, who has been a consistent adversary of many Jersey City politicians since he was elected to the council in 2005.

But this time it was personal.

Fulop had just introduced a resolution that would have banned dual public office holding, personal use of city vehicles and required former city officials to wait three years after leaving the city’s employment before they could lobby the city. If passed, Jersey City would have the strictest ethics measure in the state, said Fulop.

Political grudges don't always last forever.  Look at Albio Sires and Frank Guarini.  When Sires, a young West New York gadfly, was the Republican candidate for Congress in 1986, he hurled some fairly heavy criticism of Guarini, then a four-term Democratic Congressman.  But more than twenty years later, Sires is now a loyal Democrat, and yesterday he praised Guarini's fourteen years in Congress when he introduced a bill to name a post office in Jersey City after his onetime rival.

Mr. Guarini served in the New Jersey State Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives 

Washington, D.C. – Today, Congressman Albio Sires (D-NJ), a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, made the following statement after hearing testimony from General David H. Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker given before a joint hearing between the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the House Armed Services Committee on the success of the surge in Iraq:

It was the perfect setting for an immigration related press conference: an old train terminal in Jersey City’s Liberty State Park, within view of the Statue of Liberty, where countless immigrants poured off ferries from nearby Ellis Island to board trains for points West.

It was here that Gov. Jon Corzine signed an executive order creating a new blue ribbon panel on immigration during a well-choreographed, well-attended event. But there was a less jubilant undertone as well -- it was clear that the Governor did not want the tension that characterized the recent Morristown anti-immigration rally to replicate across the state.

The panel will have 27 members – two state legislators chosen from the black and Hispanic caucus, seven commissioners from state agencies, and 18 members appointed by the Governor. It will be led by Public Advocate Ron Chen for a period of 15 months, with a mission to recommend how to integrate the state’s immigrant population – both legal and illegal – in matters ranging from civil rights, naturalization, healthcare, employment, job training, housing, education and language.

Bills pave the way for a new era in conservation