Jim Florio

It was no surprise that U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman John Adler came out against Governor Jon Corzine’s plan to raise tolls on the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway.  The two Democrats plan to be on the ballot this November, and they’re not exactly interested in seeing this controversial state issue engulf their federal campaigns.

Judge Steven Perskie, who wrote the legislation that brought casino gambling to Atlantic City in the 1970’s and perhaps one of the smartest people to serve in the New Jersey Legislature, turns 63 today. He was elected to the State Assembly in 1971, at age 26 – part of a Democratic team that toppled the powerful Atlantic County Republican machine. In that race, Joseph McGahn, a physician and the first Democrat to serve as Mayor of Absecon, defeated the legendary Frank “Hap”Farley, the Atlantic GOP boss and a 41-year veteran of the Senate, by nearly 12,000 votes. Perkie and his running mate, 27-year-old attorney James Colasurdo, defeated Republican incumbent Samuel Curcio (the father of Atlantic County Freeholder James Curcio), and Howard Haneman, who was seeking an open seat created by the retirement of Albert Smith, a former Assembly Speaker.

After spending six years working as a private sector lawyer, former Acting Governor and Senate Co-President Donald DiFrancesco wants to get back into public service – perhaps as a board member of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority.

“Would I be interested? Yeah, sure. Will I get it? I’m not sure,” said DiFrancesco. “It’s the other party. He probably has a lot of people who he wants to put on there.”

The two New Jersey House seats most clearly in play next year are the two that have been held by the Republicans for the longest period of time:  Democrats have not won the seat now held by Jim Saxton for 126 years, and Mike Ferguson’s district has not elected a Democrat since 1954.

Former Governor Brendan Byrne has an explanation as to why his autograph was currently selling on E-Bay for $3.00, while autographs of U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg and former Governors Jim Florio and Tom Kean are priced at between $24.75 and $29.99.

“It’s the market,” Byrne told PolitickerNJ.com’s Matt Friedman.  “There are

Florence Councilwoman Betsy Ryan, who served as an Assistant Counsel to Governor Jim Florio in the 1990’s, is the new President of the New Jersey Hospital Association.  Ryan is currently the NJJA COO, and has served on the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners, the Clinton-Gore Transition Team, the transition teams for Governors Jon Corzine and James E. McGreevey and the legal audit team for former President Clinton’s National Health Care Reform Task Force.

Very quietly, another challenger has emerged with the intention of doing what Democrats have found nearly impossible: ousting 14-term U.S. Rep. Chris Smith.

Josh Zeitz, 33, just got back to his hometown of Bordentown a few months ago from a four year teaching stint at Cambridge University in England. But he has already raised $43,000 under the radar, and hopes to get $100,000 before the year is up.

Joshua Zeitz, a former aide to Governor Jim Florio and U.S. Senator Robert Torricelli, is expected to run against fourteen-term Republican Congressman Christopher Smith. Zeitz has raised $43,032, while Smith, a traditionally anemic fundraiser, has $204,161 cash on hand. Zeitz actually outraised Smith during the last quarter.

In an under-the-radar race in district 11, Republican Assemblyman Sean Kean is depicting his opponent as a big tax guy, a onetime member of the Assembly who voted for Gov. Jim Florio's tax hike in the early 1990s and subsequently lost his seat in Trenton.

In his stump speech, Kean uses the jaw-dropping jump in the state budget from $21 to $34 billion since Democrats took office. Given those figures, the last thing the state needs, in Kean's view, is John Villapiano, a broadly grinning, big-hearted liberal returning to Trenton.

Does John Molinelli, in the news this week for vacationing in Italy with State Senator Joseph Coniglio, the target of a federal criminal investigation, and with Bergen County Democratic Organization counsel Dennis Oury, make the list of the five worst county prosecutors in recent years?

Here are four who clearly make our list:

• Two weeks before James Florio was to take office as Governor in 1990, Camden County Prosecutor Samuel Asbell held a news conference to tell a rather spectacular story: he said two gunmen had ambushed him in what became a high speed New Year’s Day gun battle. Asbell said he shot one of the gunmen with a sawed-off shotgun he carried in his car. He said machine gun fire shattered his car windows. But investigators for the State Police found that Asbell had staged the entire event as a last-ditch effort to keep his job under a Democratic Governor. He resigned and entered a mental health facility for treatment.