George Norcross

The decision of Assemblyman Herbert Conaway (D-Delanco) to run for Burlington County Democratic Chairman could complicate a 2010 special election for State Senator if Diane Allen (R-Edgewater Park) were to leave the Legislature.  Allen is battling an aggressive form of cancer and recently had surgery.  She has a tough road ahead. 

If Allen were to resign, the Republican County Committee from the seventh district towns in Burlington and Camden counties would hold a special election convention to name a new Senator.  There has been speculation that Rev. Aubrey Fenton, a minister and former Burlington County Freeholder, could take the seat.  That would set up a November 2010 special election to fill the remaining fourteen months of Allen's term - an early referendum on Republican Christopher Christie's first months as Governor in a Democratic-leaning district Allen has won five times.  It would also be an early test for the new Senate President, Stephen Sweeney (D-West Deptford), who topped Richard Codey largely because of the size of the South Jersey Democratic delegation.  A special election could be enormously expensive Sweeney and Democratic leader George Norcross battle the new Republican governor for a valuable Senate seat.

The high profile State Senate race would also come as U.S. Rep. John Adler (D-Cherry Hill) campaigns for a second term; there is substantial overlap between the third congressional district and the seventh legislative district. 

Three names have been prominently mentioned on the Democratic side: Conaway, Assemblyman Jack Conners (D-Pennsauken), and Troy Singleton, a former Deputy Executive Director of the Assembly and now the Director of Policy and Planning for the New Jersey Regional Council of Carpenters.  Singleton, who took a leave of absence this year to run Loretta Weinberg's campaign for Lt. Governor, is a favorite of Camden County Democratic leaders who are not huge fans of Conaway. Read More >

Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver (D-East Orange) told The Star-Ledger today that Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Trenton) has dropped her campaign to become assembly speaker.

Oliver, who is expected to ascend to the speakership as part of a deal between north and south Jersey Democrats to install state Sen. Stephen Sweeney (D-West Deptford) as senate president, claimed the votes for the position in September.  Watson Coleman, however, continued to campaign for it until this week.

If she is voted to lead the lower legislative house, Oliver will replace retiring Speaker Joseph Roberts (D-Camden).    

Read More >

Up against a politically and geographically connected frontrunner, Assembly Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing) this week continues to call assembly people in the Democratic caucus in an effort to secure backing for the speakership, according to party sources.

A veteran legislator and former Democratic state party chair, Watson Coleman naturally headed a short-list of successors to retiring Speaker Joe Roberts (D-Camden).

But the Mercer County product's difficulty in a state controlled by powerful political fiefdoms is she hails from a county that is the Democratic Party equivalent of Somerset.

If the measure included time in the trenches and advocacy of progressive party causes, she looked tracked to become the Assembly's first African American woman speaker.

Read More >

East Orange Mayor Robert Boswer today said he believes Chris Christie's victory over Jon Corzine in the governor's race earlier this month should spark Democratic Party senators to reconsider their abandonment of support for Senate President Richard Codey (D-Roseland).

"I don't know what to expect at all from Chris Christie, and probably won't get any kind of clues until the transition team changes the guard, but I do believe Christie's win changes the dynamic for the senate presidency and the same thing for the speaker of the assembly," said Bowser.

At last public count, Senate Majority Leader Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford) has 15 caucus votes to Codey's eight heading into their Nov. 23rd Statehouse confab and presumptive legislative leadership change.

Read More >

CHERRY HILL - "Machine, what machine?" deadpans retiring Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts (D-Camden), shuffling into Camden County Democratic Committee headquarters amid hundreds of bodies pushing toward the back door and the rally under a blue sky.

"There is no such thing as a machine."

Camden County Democratic Party leader George Norcross III is in the crowd, but his younger brother, Donald, is running the program.

President of the Southern New Jersey AFL-CIO Central Labor Council and assistant business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 351, Donald Norcross is also a candidate for the Assembly in the 5th District.

The union men and women on the pavement cheer heartily when Building and Trades chief Bill Mullen pays his respects to the labor leader who helped elect almost 200 union people since he took over the Southern Labor Council.

Read More >

The Courier-Post today endorsed South Jersey AFL-CIO President Donald Norcross for State Assembly in the fifth district, saying that Norcross is well versed on state issues and "would be able to hit the ground running in Trenton" even though he'll be a freshman. 

The Courier-Post also endorsed Norcross' running mate, Camden City Council President Angel Fuentes.  The two are seeking to replace Speaker Joseph Roberts (D-Camden) and Assemblywoman Nilsa Cruz-Perez (D-Camden).  Neither are seeking re-election.

But the Gloucester County Times declined to back Norcross, instead supporting Fuentes and Republican Stepfanie Velez-Gentry, who has attracted national attention because she owns a company that sells sex toys to women

Norcross, the Camden County Democratic Co-Chairman and the brother of Democratic leader George Norcross, set a record this month for the single biggest fundraising event for a first-time candidate: he raised a reported $350,000. 

"Norcross has been a union leader, yet he understands that things cannot be the same for future government workers as they have been and are for current ones in terms of pay and benefits. He sees that Trenton can't afford to keep handing out fat pensions and loads of other expensive benefits and remain solvent," the editorial said.  "While Norcross and Fuentes likely won't be as independent from party-line politics as we'd like, in this race, they're clearly the best choices."

Norcross, according to the Courier-Post, would not deny that he'll quickly move up to the Senate after State Sen. Dana Redd (D-Camden) wins her race for Mayor of Camden.

Read More >

BELLEVILLE - It was fitting that the main man at the microphone tonight at Nanina's in the Park was County Clerk Chris Durkin, a walking hybrid of two opposing political camps, which 20 days before a gubernatorial election can already see the delineations of a county executive battle in 2010.

"Dick Codey was ready to lead when he became governor and he made us all so proud to live, work and play in this state," Durkin said of the former governor and sitting senate president, in the next breath noting of his boss, the Essex County Executive, "Joe DiVincenzo has made Essex County the envy not only of the state but of the country. He is the taxpayers' best friend, and a bureaucrat's worst nightmare."

If it sounded like homage paid to opposing warlords, Durkin is indeed ensconced in the administration of the powerful county executive, but his mother, Joan, is a Codey, cousin of Senate President Richard Codey (D-Roseland), who last month was unofficially forced off the senate throne in a north-south Jersey Democratic Party coup that hinged on DiVincenzo backing Senate Majority Leader Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford) as the new senate president.

Tonight, Durkin - an amiable presence belying a torturous Codey v. DiVincenzo undercurrent - greeted guests to his $150-a-plate fundraiser, including headlining speaker Newark Mayor Cory Booker and the governor himself, who posed for pictures with Durkin before ascending a staircase where South Jerseyan Sweeney stood in a milling, hors d'oeuvres munching crowd with DiVincenzo. 

Read More >

This year's Most Interesting Job for an Assembly Candidate Award goes to District 5 Republican Stepfanie Velez-Gentry, who runs a business specializing in... well, what amounts to naughty Tupper Ware parties.

Velez-Gentry, who's running against South Jersey power broker George Norcross's brother, Donald Norcross, runs Nookie Parties LLC, which organizes "adult romance parties for women & couples." 

Velez-Gentry's company, which she founded in 2007, sells sex toys, lingerie, games and other erotic knickknacks at customers' home parties.  The company's Web site lists dozens of representatives all over the country, and features pictures of Velez-Gentry modeling a couple of her products.

Velez-Gentry said that her company has helped save marriages and that "when the moms and dads are happy, the whole family is happy."  

Read More >

PATERSON - If Senate President Richard Codey (D-Roseland) endorses Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver (D-East Orange) for speaker, he wouldn't see the move as a self-destruct button on his own leadership chair.
 
"I'm saying it's not the end of the world if we had a senate president and a speaker from Essex County," said Codey, to stories suggesting Essex County fracture between Codey, who's trying to protect his senate presidency; and County Executive Joe Divincenzo, who supports Oliver for speaker and South Jersey Senate Majority Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford) as part of a North-South Jersey leadership trade-off.
 
Trying to succeed retiring Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts (D-Camden) as the face of South Jersey leadership in Trenton, Sweeney has enough (14 of 23) votes in the Democratic caucus to extract Codey from the rostrum roost Codey has owned for six years. But Codey still hopes to build cross-the-aisle support in the Republican caucus to block his South Jersey rival and hold onto the senate presidency.
 
And he doesn't believe he needs to fight Oliver in the process, as he envisions an all-Essex leadership team - for two years.
 
"Who's the Speaker of the House?"
 
"Nancy Pelosi," was the answer.
 
"Who leads the U.S. Senate?"
 
A mind blurred over with Jersey political personages failed to immediately dredge the name of Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), but Codey made his point anyway.

Read More >

PATERSON - The guests came and kept coming, happily bellying up to the bar and spilling into the overflow rooms here at the Brownstone for a Sheila Oliver fundraiser even as Essex County Democratic Party Chairman Phil Thigpen upped the confidence decibel level with a release that all of the Assembly people from his powerful county delegation would back the East Orange Assemblywoman for speaker.

The email missive carried the latest piece of bad news for Senate President Richard Codey (D-Roseland), who's fighting to remain in his chair of power without a majority of the majority in his Democratic caucus and now with the lower house members from his home county throwing in with Oliver.

Poised to become the first African American woman speaker, Oliver is generally seen as a North Jersey counterweight to South Jersey state Sen. Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford), who has the Democratic Party votes in the senate to take Codey's job. The more support she builds, the tougher it becomes for Codey to justify sticking around as a double dose of Essex in both the speaker's and Senate president's chairs.

Read More >