Herb Jackson

Tom Moran will return to the Star-Ledger as a political columnist eighteen months after he left the state's largest newspaper to take a communications job with PSE&G, New Jersey's largest utility company.  Moran was part of the Star-Ledger team that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for their coverage of Gov. James E. McGreevey's resignation. 

Moran's comeback means that the Star-Ledger will go back to analysis pieces that have been largely absent since he left the paper in February 2008.  Only Paul Mulshine, who writes from a conservative viewpoint, has been noticeable as a political columnist.  Since Moran's departure, a trio of columnists for The Record, Charles Stile, Alfred Doblin, and Herb Jackson, have effectively dominated the political opinion pages in the New Jersey print media.

Michael Chertoff, who was New Jersey's U.S. Attorney in the 1990's, says it's a stretch to accuse Acting U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra of trying to help Chris Christie's campaign for governor. The Record's Herb Jackson asked the former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security about reports that the Justice Department was investigating Marra's comments:

Q: Did Marra cross a line with his comments?

The Record's Herb Jackson took a look at Solomon Dwek's campaign contributions, noting that the federal cooperating witness and his wife "made more than $190,000 in campaign contributions from 1998 through 2006 to a broad array of political leaders, including Democratic members of Congress, Republican state senators, and both parties' state committees." 

Political corruption is often a boon to nonprofit organizations. When called about old campaign contributions they accepted from bad people, most politicians give the money to charity.  It's not a bad plan - candidates often receive a political benefit from their charitable contributions.

The Democratic State Committee and the Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce's legislative leadership PAC are the lone holdouts; spokespersons told Jackson they will are keeping Dwek's money.  But the Republican State Committee, chaired by DeCroce's running mate, Assemblyman Jay Webber, will give back the money they took from Dwek five years ago.

The Record's Herb Jackson believes that the passage of legislation that would give the District of Columbia a full seat in the U.S. House of Representatives might benefit New Jersey.  The plan would be to increase the size of the House from 435 to 437, giving Washington, D.C. one seat and Utah one seat.  Jackson says that while New Jersey could lose a seat in a 435-member House after the 2010 census, it is more likely that the state will keep its thirteenth seat in a body that has 437 members. 

"An extra two seats in the House means states such as New Jersey that are on the cusp of losing a seat stand a better chance of keeping their full delegations," Jackson said.

Tonight on NJN’s Reporters Roundtable, Gov. Jon Corzine will discuss his toll road plan, Super Tuesday and other topics with host Michael Aron, Nick Acocella of Politifax, Herb Jackson of the Bergen Record and Milennium Radio newsman Kevin McArdle. The show airs tonight at 6:30 and Sunday morning at 10am.

The Record's Herb Jackson wrote about 2012 congressional redistricting in his Capital Games column this week, noting a PolitickerNJ.com fantasy map that pitted Republican Rodney Frelinghuysen and Democrat Bill Pascrell against each other in a general election contest.  Jackson reported that Democrats would like to see Steven Rothman pick up Scott Garrett's portion of Bergen County and force Frelinghuysen into a primary with Scott Garrett after New Jersey loses one of its thirteen House seats after the 2010 census.

Next time someone criticizes New York-based network news coverage of local politics in New Jersey, consider this: WNBC-TV’s Brian Thompson covered the mass defection of Lyndhurst Republicans, but The Record – Bergen County’s daily newspaper -- did not.   This cycle, The Record’s columnists, specifically Charles Stile, Alfred Doblin and Herb Jackson, have been at the top of their game, and clearly dominating political coverage.  Stile broke the story that Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli traveled to Italy on a vacation with State Senator Joseph Coniglio, the target of a federal criminal probe.  It took The Record a week to run an editorial on Molinelli, and they never actually covered it as a news story.

The Record's Herb Jackson has an interesting post on his blog: he notes that embattled U.S. Senator Larry Craig contributed $10,000 to Tom Kean, Jr.'s 2006 Senate campaign. Jackson notes that Kean, Jr. has $47,000 left in his federal campaign account -- enough to give Craig's money back. But then again, The Record endorsed Bob Menendez last year, and never pushed the Hudson County Democrat to return any campaign contributions he received from numerous tainted donors -- so maybe Kean shouldn't care what The Record says?

U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg's $1 million loan to his re-election campaign triggers a new law that will allow his potential Democratic primary rivals to up their maximum individual contributions from $2,300 per election to as much as $12,600, according to Herb Jackson's report in The Record. Republicans would be able to use the increased limits if Lautenberg transfers unused primary election funds into his general election account. This new law was witten in 2002, after New Jersey's Jon S. Corzine spent nearly $70 million to win a seat in the United States Senate.

The conventional wisdom is that Lautenberg wants a hefty warchest on hand to dissuade other Democrats -- many of whom swear they have no intention of running if Lautenberg does -- from challenging him for the 2008 Democratic nomination.