Hold Me Accountable

Hazel Gluck got her consolation prize today: Governor Jon "Hold Me Accountable/Zero Tolerance" Corzine named the Trenton lobbyist to the New Jersey Public Officers Salary Review Commission.  In August 2006, Corzine named Gluck to the Board of Trustees of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, but backed off after critics ripped him for Gluck's apparent conflict: she had been the lobbyist for the New Jersey Medical Society.

Some pundits say the latest Gluck nomination is no less conflicting: the Public Officers Salary Review Commission reviewing the salaries of the Governor and cabinet officers, which means, arguably, that she can help set the salaries of the people she lobbies.

If you apply The Corzine Principle, Guttenberg Mayor David Delle Donna won't have to resign following his indictment on corruption charges.  Governor Jon Corzine has only pushed Democrats to resign their current public office if they are seeking re-election.

Jon Corzine and Brad Abelow earned millions together as partners on Wall Street, and one Republican legislator says they should "contribute a few hundred million dollars of their own to pay for what they want to spend" in Trenton.

Sometimes politicians get it right, and sometimes politicians -- even 96 years later -- just don't get it. Consider the words of Woodrow Wilson after he took the oath of office as Governor of New Jersey on January 17, 1911:

"Back of all reform lies the method of getting it. Back of the question what you want lies the fundamental quest of all government: how are you going to get it? How are you going to get public servants who will obtain it for you? How are you going to get genuine representatives who will serve your real interests and not their own, or the interests of some special group or body of your fellow citizens whose power is of the few and not of the many?"

Parsippany developer Woodmont Properties, LLC, withdrew its application to re-zone property on Birchwood Avenue in Cranford, prior to Tuesday night’s meeting of the Cranford Township Committee. Republican Anne Evans Estabrook had hoped to sell her sixteen-acre parcel of land to the firm, whose lawyer serves on her U.S. Senate exploratory committee.
The controversial re-zoning request was a political football in the Union County town, where for the past few months residents besieged Planning Board meetings and voiced disapproval of the developer’s proposed transformation of part of Birchwood from office space to residential.

Jon Corzine has a bounce in his step this days, literally and figuratively. Recent follow-up surgery on his injured leg will correct the limp that has bothered him since his unfortunate automobile accident last Spring. And, the just-released result of a new FDU-Public Mind Poll gives the Governor a solid 54 percent "favorable" rating as the campaigns for this year's midterm legislative elections are getting into full swing. Since those elections are typically a referendum on the performance of the sitting governor, Democrats should be pretty happy about their party's prospects on November 6th.

HOLD ME ACCOUNTABLE: "I don’t think he’s in any real trouble...they’re just pesky things," says former Gov. Brendan Byrne on Jon Corzine's emailsIn his 1974 inaugural speech, Brendan T. Byrne borrowed a line from New Jersey’s most famous former governor: Woodrow Wilson. “If you think too much about being reelected, it is very difficult to be worth reelecting,” it read.

The next year, Byrne took that wisdom to heart, pushing through a wildly unpopular new state income tax. So unpopular, in fact, that it cost Democrats seventeen Assembly seats in the mid-term elections, made Byrne consider not running for reelection, and led to eight other Democrats challenging him in the gubernatorial primary in 1977.

Thirty-two years later, Gov. Jon S. Corzine used that same Woodrow Wilson line in his inaugural address. But for all the criticism Corzine has faced lately, it’s nothing compared to the backlash Byrne saw in the 70’s, said the former Governor.

In the wake of a Quinnipiac University poll in which a majority of voters say Gov. Jon Corzine should make public his financial dealings with Rocco Riccio, Senate Minority Leader Leonard Lance again called on Attorney General Anne Milgram to investigate Riccio’s role in a government job.

The brother-in-law of state workers union leader and former Gov. Jon Corzine girlfriend, Carla Katz, Riccio apparently quit his government post after Corzine’s people told him he should leave instead of turning into a political flash point. Corzine later admitted to giving Riccio money, a move the governor’s detractors say occurred after Corzine’s people couldn’t get Riccio the private sector job they said they’d secure for him.