Craig Stanley

NEWARK - Payne family patriarch, Former Assemblyman Bill Payne (D-Newark), backed up his nephew’s off-the-line challenge in the 28th District today, but said he has not yet reached a decision about his own comeback in the neighboring 29th District.

"I’m circulating petitions," Payne told PolitickerNJ.com.  I have another couple of days to give it some thought. I’m still weighing all the options."

The filing deadline to submit petitions to run for Assembly is 4 p.m., Monday, April 6th.

Two years ago, the Essex County Democratic Committee offered Payne a shot at reelection to his Assembly seat, but the veteran South Ward lawmaker and older brother and consigliere of U.S. Rep. Donald Payne (D-Newark), insisted on trying to move up to occupy the seat vacated by former state Sen./Mayor Sharpe James.

Essex County Democratic Chairman Phil Thigpen, State Party Chairman Joe Cryan, and Corzine political director Phil Alagia

WEST ORANGE - Even though Governor Jon Corzine and the Democrats don’t want primaries sapping their general election year strength, Essex County Democratic Chairman Phil Thigpen says former Assemblyman Craig Stanley’s off-the-line challenge of Democratic incumbents won’t boomerang organizationally on his more famous congressman uncle, U.S. Rep. Donald Payne (D-Newark).

“Don’t mess with Congressman Payne,” said Thigpen. “There is no end to the lengths to which I will go to protect him.”

Everybody has an opportunity to run for office if they have an interest, said Thigpen, and there’s no way he could stop Stanley from running – even if he can’t give him the party line.  

This afternoon, with his uncle, former Assemblyman Bill Payne, and his cousin, Freeholder/Councilman Donald Payne Jr. in attendance, Stanley officially announced his candidacy for the Assembly in the 28th District.

U.S. Rep. Donald Payne (D-Newark), left, and Councilman Donald Payne, Jr.

NEWARK – In what is more than a one-man crusade, even if its most significant political implication may be a test of the fighting shape of a respected political dynasty, and the future of an aging congressman, former 28th District Assemblyman Craig A. Stanley intends to launch his off-the-line election campaign tomorrow at noon at the corner of South Orange Avenue near the Garden State Parkway.

The nephew of U.S. Rep. Donald Payne (D-Newark), Stanley served for six consecutive terms before the alliance of Mayor Cory Booker and North Ward Democratic Party leader Steve Adubato backed an alternative district slate that included Assemblyman Ralph Caputo (D-Belleville) and Cleopatra Tucker (D-Newark), both of whom are now seeking reelection with Booker’s and Adubato’s backing.

From left: U.S. Rep. Donald Payne, Sen Ronald Rice, Andre Reames, Bill Payne, Freeholder/Councilman Donald Payne, Jr., and Craig Stanley

NEWARK – Democratic Party stronghold Essex was supposed to be quiet this season as Newark and the environs reflect on a North Ward-City Hall lovefest and prepare for the reelection campaign of Gov Jon Corzine. 

Now the Payne family appears mobilized on the primary horizon here in the 28th District and potentially in the 29th, though insiders say it's unlikely they will be able to escalate a fullscale battle, even if they choose to fight.

After getting bumped out of office by an Adubato-Booker alliance in 2007, family scion former Assemblyman Craig Stanley (D-Irvington) is trying to scratch his way back into the legislature and finding little organizational support in the process with two weeks to go before the April 6th state filing deadline.

Essex sources on all sides say there’s little or no chance Chairman Phil Thigpen will award the District 28 party line to Stanley over incumbents Assemblyman Ralph Caputo (D-Belleville) and Assemblywoman Cleopatra Tucker (D-Newark) - not in a gubernatorial election year when an unpopular Corzine faces more than a warm body challenge from the Republican Party, and party chieftains are intent on trying to keep his troops in line. 

Thigpen himself is cryptic on the Stanley issue.

Democrat Craig Stanley is expected to announce next month that he will seek his old State Assembly seat.  Stanley spent twelve years in the Assembly before narrowly losing the 2007 Democratic primary to Ralph Caputo and Cleopatra Tucker, a casualty of a political war that sought to oust State Sen. Ronald Rice.  Rice won his primary despite strong opposition from Newark Mayor Cory Booker; Stanley ran on the Rice line.

Regardless of the outcome of the game of political musical chairs in the 28th legislative district, where two incumbents and a former Assemblyman are posturing for two spots on the Democratic line, look for the mostly white, blue collar towns of Belleville and Bloomfield to be split away from Newark and Irvington when a new map is drawn after next year's census.

The 28th was supposed to be one of the voting rights districts that protected minority representation in the Legislature when it was drawn in 2001.  The incumbents at the time were three African Americans: State Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Newark) and Assemblymen Donald Tucker (D-Newark) and Craig Stanley (D-Irvington). 

If Caputo holds his seat this year, it makes a defense of the current district under the Voting Rights Act more difficult.

Belleville, which was in the old 36th district, and Bloomfield, part of the old 34th district, were mostly represented by Republican legislators before the towns were moved in to the new 28th.  Rice beat GOP Assemblywoman Marion Crecco (R-Bloomfield) by a 69%-30% margin in 2001.

But Belleville and Bloomfield, which was estimated to have a combined population of 79,816 last year, have proven to be a greater force in Essex County politics than the redistricting commission imagined.  In 2007, Essex Democrats backed Ralph Caputo, a white Freeholder who served as a Republican Assemblyman from 1968 to 1972, to run for the Assembly.  Caputo and Cleopatra Tucker, whose late husband held the seat until his death in 2005, unseated two incumbents, Stanley and Oadline Truitt (D-Newark). 

Assemblyman Ralph Caputo (D-Belleville), left, and Assemblywoman Cleopatra Tucker (D-Newark), with Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts, could be playing a game of political musical chairs for one 28th district Assembly seat.

Ralph Caputo may be passing Cleopatra Tucker as the most vulnerable member of the State Assembly in District 28 as the Payne political machine moves to return Craig Stanley to the Legislature.  Sources say the Payne organization, led by U.S. Rep. Donald Payne, has made Stanley, the nephew of former Assemblyman William Payne, a priority as the April filing deadline approaches.  Stanley spent twelve years in the Assembly before narrowly losing the 2007 Democratic primary to Caputo and Tucker.  He was a casualty of a political war that sought to oust State Sen. Ronald Rice, who won his primary despite strong opposition from Newark Mayor Cory Booker.  Stanley ran on the Rice line.

William Payne, 76, has mulled his own return to the Assembly seat he gave up in 2007 to mount an Independent bid for State Senator in the 29th district.  Sources say he is willing to forego a primary challenge to incumbents Albert Coutinho and Grace Spencer if Essex Democrats will agree to put Stanley on the organization line in the neighboring district.

For a while it looked like Tucker was the most likely casualty, but now the talk is that it may be Caputo, a 68-year-old white Belleville Democrat who represents a Newark-Irvington district drawn to elect African American legislators.  Caputo is also an Essex County Freeholder (he represents a blue collar district) and served in the Assembly as a Republican from 1968 to 1972.

State Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Essex), left, and Assemblyman Ralph Caputo (D-Belleville).

TRENTON - The 28th District primary battle to take down state Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Essex) in 2007 proved bloody enough for Rice - the survivor - to comment in its aftermath, “Every war has casualties.” 

Running off the line, Rice fended off his own challenger, but lost his running mates, Craig Stanley and Oadline Truitt, who were defeated by Ralph Caputo and Cleopatra Tucker. 

Now months before the 2009 Democratic primary in Essex County with sources saying Stanley wants back in, Rice wants it known he supports the reelection of Assemblyman Caputo (D-Belleville) and Assemblyman Tucker (D-Newark), and won’t back challengers to the two people who in the last election helped comprise a ticket that challenged him. 

Politicker.com photo

Former Assemblyman William Payne (right, with Gov. Jon Corzine) is not likely to seek his old 29th district seat, but he wants his nephew, former Assemblyman Craig Stanley, to get his old 28th district seat back next year.

Freshman Assemblywoman Cleopatra Tucker is in danger of losing the support of the Essex County Democratic organization if she runs for re-election to a second term in 2009, Democratic sources say.  Part of the deal to keep Assemblywoman Grace Spencer, perhaps Newark Mayor Cory Booker's closest friend in the Legislature, in her 29th district seat is to replace Tucker with former Assemblyman Craig Stanley, who lost his bid for renomination in the June 2007 primary. 

IRVINGTON - It's been a tough year for Mayor Wayne Smith, whose name was spun into a federal scandal that knocked down 11 other public officials in late 2007.

As part of a U.S. Attorney's Office bribery investigation called Operation Broken Boards, FBI agents posing as dummy insurance salespeople last year identified two public officials in Irvington, one of whom directed them to give $5,000 to Keith Reid, former chief of staff to Newark Council President Mildred Crump.

The U.S. Attroney's Office indicted Reid on corruption charges, but as yet he remains the only public official as part of Operation Broken Boards who has not gone to trial.

To date, Smith has not spoken publicly about the incident or addressed rampant speculation that he is one of those Irvington officials who directed the FBI to give money to Red, but today in the face of a rumor in his city that he intends to imminently step down, the mayor said no way.