Joe Cryan

Cryan Calls on Christie to Produce a Balanced Budget

TRENTON – New Jersey Democratic Chair Joe Cryan today called on Republican Gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie to produce a budget in the wake of comments he made on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show and his statement regarding the restoration of the property tax deduction.

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ASSEMBLY DEMS COMMENTARY ON SECOND COMMITTEE REVIEW OF OVERSIGHT FOR NJ PORTION OF FEDERAL STIMULUS

(TRENTON) – Chairs of seven Assembly committees today issued a multimedia package on the Assembly’s efforts to ensure legislative oversight and accountability of the money made available to New Jersey from the recently enacted federal stimulus package.

The committee hearings were the second of two days largely devoted to discussing the impact of the federal stimulus on the state. Assembly committees heard from a variety of state commissioners and department heads on their efforts to obtain and oversee distribution of federal stimulus dollars.

Gov. Jon Corzine, right, and Democratic Party State Chairman Joe Cryan

TRENTON – The specter of a reviled former president revisited the Statehouse today in the budget speech delivered by Gov. Jon Corzine, who oratorically pushed the Bush button at least once when he said Democrats saved SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Program) health care benefits for 10,000 New Jersey children.

The remark received applause among the chamber’s Democratic members.

But the budget address this afternoon before a joint session of the legislature unleashed a Republican army of critics, one of the most vocal of whom was state Sen. Joseph Kyrillos (R-Middletown), rumored to be a short list candidate for lieutenant governor with GOP gubernatorial frontrunner Chris Christie.

“I think it’s delusional,” Kyrillos said of Corzine’s speech, who re-emphasized Christie’s essential argument that the state budget crisis and the national economic crisis, which Democrats say was intensified by former President George W. Bush’s bumbling two-term tenure, are two issues.

Carl Bergmanson stands on the route Gov. Jon Corzine walked to the rostrum to address the legislature.

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TRENTON – As lawmakers departed, a man handing out cards with the words “independent Democrat” printed on them panned the budget speech just delivered by Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine. 

“It was outrageous,” said former Glen Ridge Mayor Carl Bergmanson, who says he plans to be on the ballot in the Democratic Party primary. 

He may have been the only Democrat in the room publicly expressing a negative opinion.

Gov. Jon Corzine on today's Chamber of Commerce trip.

NORTHEAST CORRIDOR – The Chamber of Commerce “Walk to Washington” train lurches out of the station and it isn’t even past Newark before some of the old-timers are predicting – with a degree of sadness - that no one’s going to get thrown off the train.

There’s a sense among the Democrats that if they let it all hang out with booze and bad behavior in an economic downturn and gubernatorial election year, they will appear crass and out-of-touch.

The establishment Republicans who are here probably have in their minds a preposition-ending statement issued yesterday by the gubernatorial campaign of Republican frontrunner Chris Christie: "Former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie wants to bring real change to Trenton and that comes with ending politics as usual, which this trip has become a symbol of," said spokesman Bill Stepien.

So they too are restrained as the 14-car train clears the South Ward and this rolling world of business and politics collides in happy but measured ceremony with the gubernatorial election and the economy hovering at the edges of every close-quarters conversation as the train heads for Washington, D.C.

PANEL OK’S DIEGNAN/CRYAN/LAMPITT BILL CREATING STANDARD FOR SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT CONTRACTS

Greatly Varying Perks, Salaries Underscore Need For Statewide Boilerplate Language

(TRENTON) – The Assembly Education Committee today released legislation Assembly members Patrick J. Diegnan, Joseph Cryan and Pamela Lampitt sponsored to implement a statewide contract template for the hiring of all public school superintendents.

“There is absolutely no reason that superintendent contracts should vary so greatly from district-to-district,” said Diegnan (D-Middlesex). “A standard contract template would level the playing field across districts and stop the end-run abuses of tax dollars meant for the classroom. Most importantly, it would insulate the vast majority of dedicated educators from seeing their reputations tarnished by the untoward practices of a few.”

TRENTON - Today, New Jersey Democratic Chairman Joe Cryan called on Republican Chairman Tom Wilson to publicly disavow a Republican National Committee (RNC) effort to extinguish a New Jersey federal court's power  to protect voters nationally against Republican intimidation and suppression tactics.

Gov. Jon Corzine, right, and Democratic Party State Chairman Joe Cryan

Focused on the reelection of Gov. Jon Corzine, the Democrats issued a brief statement today, taking a three-candidate in one shot in the wake of former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie’s announcement that he's planning to run for governor.   

“Whether it’s a right-wing small town mayor, a right-wing mountain man assemblyman, or a Bush-Cheney political appointee, we’ll see who wins the nomination,” said State Party Chairman Joseph Cryan, referring respectively to former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, Assemblyman Richard Merkt (D-Mendham) and Christie.

Assemblywoman Linda Stender says she has her party's support to seek another term

Assemblywoman Linda Stender (D-Fanwood) said today that she intends to run for re-election to the assembly in 2009.

“My immediate plan is to seek another term to the legislature, and I have great support from the state chair, my county chair, and I’ve got very good working relationships with my delegation members,” she said. “There’s a lot of important work to be done, we’re in a tough time in our economy and state and I’ll be looking forward to taking on those challenges.”

An Inside Edge report from just before the election said that a Union County Democratic official suggested that the party would try to get Stender to step aside if she lost the House race. But Stender said today that she has not felt any pressure to leave her seat.

Fomer New Jersey and Essex County Democratic Party Chairman Ray Durkin, and his son, Essex County Clerk Chris Durkin

At Mayfair Farms Restaurant in West Orange on Saturday, the St. Patrick’s Guard of Honor of New Jersey hailed Ray Durkin, or the chairman, as they call him here in a nod of respect to his many years of service to the Democratic Party. 

Full-blooded and hybrid and old and new country Irish fathers and their sons - Giblin, Byrne, Stack, Barrett, McCarthy, Baroni, Mac Donald, O’Toole and Codey – for one afternoon absorbed any and all of New Jersey’s other ethnic groups into the arms of Durkin’s Irish-America.  

Durkin, who led the Essex County Democratic Organization from 1980 to 1992 in addition to serving as chair of the state party from 1985 to 1989, was the 68th St. Patrick’s Guard of Honor on a list going back to 1940 that includes President John F. Kennedy, Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., and governors Richard J. Hughes, Brendan Byrne and Richard Codey.  

In accepting the award, the former Newark City Firefighter and head of the West Ward Young Democrats who has been lowkey politically over the course of the past 12 years, said he was most proud of his wife and five sons, including Essex County Clerk Chris Durkin, who introduced his father on Saturday.