Frank Lautenberg

United States Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park) is the eighth richest member of Congress, according to a list compiled by Congressional Quarterly.  

The publication ranked the 50 richest members of the House and Senate combined.  Lautenberg, who has $48.88 million, made his fortune by co-founding Automatic Data Processing.  

The only other New Jersey member on the list is U.S. Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-Harding), the scion of a centuries-old political dynasty, who ranks 14th with $18.5 million.
    
 

Statement of New Jersey officials on the eighth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks:

New Jersey's two U.S. Senators and the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Health subcommitte issued statements tonight following President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress:

U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park) turns 86 in January. His term is up four years after that.

The Democratic-controlled Massachusetts Legislature, thinking John Kerry might win the presidency in 2004, changed state law to take away the power of the governor to fill U.S. Senate vacancies by appointment.  They didn't want the Republican governor, Mitt Romney, replacing Kerry in the Senate with a Republican.  Now that Democrat Deval Patrick is governor, there's a move to reinstate the power so that a Democrat can fill the late Ted Kennedy's seat on an interim basis.

New Jersey has not elected a Republican to the United States Senate since Clifford Case won his fourth term in 1972.  But some Democrats, seeing GOP gubernatorial candidate Christopher Christie enter September with a ten point lead over Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine, have another worry: a GOP governor could send a Republican to the U.S. Senate, if a vacancy were to occur.

Frank Lautenberg will turn 86 in January and still has four years left on his term.  No punches should be pulled here: there has been no shortage of Democrats posturing for a Senate seat in the event that Lautenberg does not finish his term, and Christie's healthy poll numbers has forced the realization that the next U.S. Senator from New Jersey could be a Republican.

If Christie wins, Democrats might need to replicate the Massachusetts law as an insurance policy on their Senate seat -- and get Corzine to sign it before he leaves office in January.   Democrats will especially want to prevent New Jersey's seat from flipping while Robert Menendez is the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chairman.

Just last week, a Star-Ledger editorial endorsed a proposal by a Wisconsin Senator to eliminate all Senate appointments and fill vacancies only by special election. According to the editorial, 20% of American voters may be represented by unelected U.S. Senators in the near future.

U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park) has a 43%-41% approval rating and U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken) is a 40%-37% approval rating, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll. The New Jersey Legislature gets an upside-down approval rating of 25%-64%.  Among independents, it is upside-down at 20%-69%.

Asked which party they would like to see in control of the State Assembly after the November election, 46% said Republican and 40% say Democratic.

The debate over debates is great political theater, even to political insiders, even though real voters are hardly ever influenced by these kinds of process stories.  Rob Andrews and Dick Zimmer, in the Democratic primary and general election, respectively, tried to make a huge deal about the reluctance of U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg to debate in 2008.  Lautenberg eventually debated, both times during the final week of the campaign, and his voters didn't hold his initial hesitation against him.

The move by New Jersey Network to move the gubernatorial debate from October 1 to October 22 was seen an beneficial to Gov. Jon Corzine, who is not required to participate in the two official debates sanctioned by the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission because he is not accepting public financing.  Corzine preferred late debates, but now says he'll be part of the debate whenever it is held.  Republican Christopher Christie and independent Christopher Daggett, both the recipients of matching funds, strongly opposed NJN's petition to change the date of the debate as a carrot toward Corzine's participation. 

Representing NJN, anchorman Jim Hooker confirmed that the request to move the debates was done without consulting the other two sponsors, Gannett New Jersey and the Philadelphia Inquirer.  At some point, expect ELEC to change their sponsorship application process to ensure that all sponsors are on the same page. 

The four ELEC commissioners rarely vote along party lines, but they did that on Monday in a 2-2 vote on a motion to change the debate schedule.  Democrats Jerry Fitzgerald English and Albert Burstein, both former legislators, voted to move the debate to October 22, while the normally less partisan Republicans, Peter Tober and Amos Saunders, voted against any changes.  Saunders, a retired Superior Court Judge who hasn't been involved in partisan politics for decades, was especially strong in his opposition to any adjustments to the calendar. 

President Barack Obama submitted his first seven nominations for U.S. Attorneys on June 4.   The U.S. Senate confirmed five of the seven on August 7, but New Jersey's Paul Fishman was not one of them.  The five who were confirmed came from New York (Southern District), Alabama, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Vermont. 

Until the Senate confirms Fishman, which is unlikely to be any earlier than next month, Acting U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra will remain in the post he's held since Christopher Christie resigned on December 1, 2008 to seek the Republican nomination for Governor.  The Associated Press, citing two unnamed sources, reported earlier this week that the Department of Justice is investigating whether Marra made inappropriate public comments during a high profile announcement of public corruption cases that might have boosted the Christie campaign.

Representatives of New Jersey's two U.S. Senators, Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park) and Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken), continue to predict a smooth confirmation for Fishman, who jointly recommended his appointment to Obama in February.  But Lautenberg and Menendez have not been able to get the Democratic-controlled Senate to move forward on Fishman.  They have not said why.

U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken) speaks today at Metro Park with, from left: U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park), Gov. Jon Corzine, Assemblywoman Linda Stender (D-Fanwood), and U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (D-Hopewell Twp.).

WOODBRIDGE - Saddled with a subpoena to nowhere - at least to date - during his 2006 U.S. Senate bid by the office of then-U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken) has lived with the open-ended question mark of that probe ever since.

Now Christie is running for governor and Menendez allies say the senator has a personal stake in reelecting Gov. Jon Corzine.

Testimony this week by former George W. Bush mastermind Karl Rove that Rove had political conversations with Christie while the latter served as U.S. Attorney, intensified Menendez's own questions about whether Christie pursued him politically in that 2006 battleground campaign as a way of currying favor with Bush.

Rove said the discussions he had with Christie related to New Jersey's top cop's prospective gubernatorial aspirations, but Menendez sees deeper, more troubling implications.

Going back to January of 2006, Christie's name appeared on a federal Attorney General's list of U.S. Attorneys slated for firing, then came off the list after information leaked in the middle of a contentious U.S. Senate campaign that Christie was probing Menendez.

Despite campaign time headlines about the U.S. Attorney's Office examining the Congressman-turned Senator's rental of property to a nonprofit organization receiving federal funds, Menendez defeated state Sen. Tom Kean, Jr. (R-Westfield).

But with the subpoena back story unresolved and Christie beating incumbent Democratic Gov. Corzine by nine points 81 days until Election Day, Menendez now wants a stepped-up Congressional counter probe of how Bush's AG Office and U.S. Attorney's offices such as Christie's administered justice.  

"Clearly the Rove information under oath creates very serious concerns about the political process that took place at the Justice Department and U.S. Attorneys offices across the country and the effect upon those U.S. Attorneys offices," the senator said today after appearing with Gov. Jon Corzine, U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park) and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood at Metro Park to celebrate the state's receipt of a $298.7 million American Recovery and Reinvestment Transit Capital Grant from the feds.

New Jerseyans may not approve of the way Gov. Jon Corzine is doing his job, but they continue to like the state's two United States Senators, according to the Quinnipiac University poll.

Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park) has a 45%-38% job approval rating, although he is upside-down (36%-50%) among independents. He was at 43%-40% one month ago.  Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken) has a job approval rating of 39%-38%, and is also upside-down among independents (34%-39%).  Menendez was at 40%-37% in July.

A Washington lobbyist will be holding a high-dollar fundraiser next month to help U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews (D-Haddon Heights) pay off his debts from an ill-fated surprise challenge to Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park) in the 2008 Democratic U.S. Senate primary.  The event, hosted by Heather Podesta, has a suggested contribution of $1,000 for individual sponsors, $2,600 for PAC sponsors, and $5,000 for co-hosts.

"If you have already maxed-out to Rep. Andrew's Senatorial campaign, you may donate to his Congressional campaign," Podesta wrote on an e-mail. "If this is the case, please make checks payable to ‘Andrews for Congress.'"