Jay Webber

Gubernatorial candidate Steve Lonegan’s campaign is actively seeking to recruit a candidate to take on Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce (R-Morris) in the Republican primary, according to Lonegan strategist Rick Shaftan.

“There will be a primary against Alex DeCroce,” said Shaftan.  “The candidate shall be named later, but there are three people who are looking to run.”

DeCroce, the assembly’s top Republican, is in charge of an assembly candidate recruitment effort that Shaftan called “inept and pathetic.”

“He’s the most inept leader on the Republican side imaginable.  He’s just given up the fight and is just happy to be a big fish in a little pond,” said Shaftan.  “If I were [Assembly Speaker] Joe Roberts, I’d be doing everything I can to make sure Alex stays in office. He’s Joe Roberts’ best friend in the state.”

Thanks to Mr. Potato Head, former State Sen. Robert Martin (R-Morris Plains), a slip-and-fall jury trial will need to be done over.  Martin, who served as foreman of the jury, wrote an article for the New Jersey Law Journal boasting that his fellow jurors relied on him to explain "abstract legal concepts and procedural issues" related to the case. A state appeals court ruled yesterday that Martin had influenced the 2006 verdict, where a woman was awarded $876,000 after a fall at a Shop-Rite in Wharton.

Martin did not seek re-election to the Senate in 2007, and has since won lucrative appointments to two panels: Gov. Jon Corzine named him to the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Board of Directors, and Senate President Richard Codey gave him a seat on the State Commission of Investigation.  Martin is also a Law Professor at Seton Hall University.

There were no trading votes for a copy machine in the Assembly Republican Caucus today.  The Assembly Republicans are refusing to attend a New Jersey Business and Industry Association event where the pro-business group will honor two Democrats, State Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Elizabeth) and Assemblyman Louis Greenwald (D-Voorhees).  Freshman GOP Assemblyman Jay Webber (R-Morris Plains) reportedly led the boycott effort.

Democrat Wayne Marek is seeking a rematch against Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce (R-Parsippany) and Assemblyman Jay Webber (R-Morris Plains) in the 26th Legislative District.

Marek announced today that he filed his nominating petitions for assembly in the solidly Republican district, as well as for the Morris Plains School Board.  Since the elections are held on different dates, Marek can run for both. 

State Sen. Joe Kyrillos, a former GOP State Chairman, will serve as chairman of Chris Christie's campaign for Governor.

State Sen. Joseph Kyrillos will serve as Chairman of Christopher Christie's campaign for the Republican nomination for Governor, and four of the five Republicans in the state congressional delegation will serve as Co-Chairmen.

U.S. Reps. Christopher Smith (R-Hamilton), Frank LoBiondo (R-Vineland), Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-Harding) and Leonard Lance (R-Clinton) are also part of Christie's statewide leadership team.

"I am honored to stand with Chris Christie in his noble fight to bring genuine reform to New Jersey," said Kyrillos, who served as GOP State Chairman from 2001 to 2004.   "There is no doubt that Chris Christie will unify not only our party, but all New Jerseyans.  This team speaks to his regional and ideological appeal all across the state." 

Smith called Christie "a man of honor, integrity, and backbone."

"He has the skills and ability to lead our state during this time of turmoil and economic struggle," said Smith, a Congressman since 1981.

Assemblyman Jay Webber (R-Morris Plains)

MOUNTAIN LAKES – Chris Christie’s two-day bus tour comes to an end in his home county of Morris, and if there are any hard feelings from past primary campaigns, they’re heavily layered over with food and drink and some early and undeniable GOP adrenaline in the banquet hall here at the Zeris Inn.

“Phenomenal,” deadpans Steve Lonegan campaign spokesman Rick Shaftan when told of the overflow crowd come to pay homage to the local boy made good. 

“I hope there were 1,000 people there – and plenty of booze,” adds the anti-GOP establishment Shaftan. “Meanwhile, we were out there pounding on doors and organizing.”

Although no one reports seeing Morris County Freeholder John Murphy among Christie’s Republican ranks – the man who unseated Christie in their bitter 1997 contest – the place is jammed with recognizable faces, including state Sen. Anthony Bucco (R-Morris), Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce (R-Parsippany), state Sen. Joseph Pennacchio (R-Morris), Assemblyman Jay Webber (R-Morris Plains), Freeholder Director Gene Feyl, Freeholder Jack Schrier, Freeholder Margaret Nordstrom, Freeholder Doug Cabana, Clerk Jane Bramhall and others.

With just over a year to go before he’s up for reelection, Gov. Jon Corzine today released a comprehensive package that he said is the final piece of ethics reform that he outlined during his 2005 gubernatorial campaign.

Corzine promised that the plan -- parts of which he’s already enacted through executive order and parts of which will require legislation-- will “end pay-to-play once and for all, at all levels of government.”

“We have reached a point where New Jerseyans have come to believe that instead of government of, by and for the people, we have a government of, by and for political contributors, lobbyists and those who are at every level of pay to play,” said Corzine at an outdoor ceremony in front of the state house.  “Today, that era ends.”

To prove his point, Corzine stood next to a checklist of his nine-point reform plan from his first campaign for governor.  Assuming that the reforms outlined today were passed, each one was checked off.

“All this is about accountability – not just about laying down new rules. It’s also about enforcing,” he said.

The press conference yesterday headlined by Assembly members Allison Littell McHose  (R-Franklin) and Jay Webber (R-Morris Plains) that attacked the Clean Elections program produced several reverberations today. 

McHose (R-Franklin) took a comment by a staffer of the Assembly Democrats yesterday in response to the press conference as a promise that Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts (D-Camden) would work to rid the state of pay-to-play contributions.

A report in the Asbury Park Press said that Assembly Democratic spokesman Derek Roseman told the paper that Roberts “plans to reform pay-to-play in the fall.”

McHose took that sentence to mean a ban on the practice, and went on to call for more stringent measures.

Assemblywoman Alison McHose is mentioned as a possible GOP candidate for Lt. Governor in 2009: Getty Images Photo
Among the many names bandied about as potential Republican gubernatorial running mates next year is Assemblywoman Allison Littell McHose (R-Franklin), who represents the third generation of a Sussex County political dynasty.

Just before speaking at a news conference attacking the Clean Elections program that she took part in last year, McHose indicated that she was open to the possibility of running for the newly created position of Lieutenant Governor.

“I’d be flattered and would consider it. I’m not actively seeking to promote myself like some on the other side,” she said. “I’m a humble politician.”

TRENTON -- With the future of the Fair and Clean Elections program hanging in the balance and its supporters set to try to negotiate its fate in two weeks, four of its opponents gathered in the State House today to question not only the program's effectiveness, but the sincerity of some of its proponents.

Assembly members Jay Webber (R-Morris Plains) and Allison Littell McHose (R-Franklin) joined Virginia-based Center for Competitive Politics (CCP) President Sean Parnell and Center for Policy Research (CPR) of New Jersey Executive Director Greg Edwards to outline preliminary findings of the CCP's report that they say shows the program has been ineffective in virtually all of its stated goals.

Most notable, according to Parnell, was the fact that special interest groups still appeared to exert large influence in collecting the hundreds of $10 donations needed to participate in the program.