John Lynch

Former Senate President John Lynch will complete his 39-month prison sentence tomorrow, and has been working at an electrical supply company run by former GOP State Sen. Jack Sinagra, according to a Star-Ledger report.   "We found something that was intellectually satisfying for him and productive for us. Cleric stuff, nothing heavy," Sinagra said of Lynch's minimum wage job at the Linden-based Turtle and Hughes.  Lynch, who served in the State Senate from 1982 to 2002, pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges in 2006.

If Christopher Christie wins the race for governor tomorrow, look for Jeffrey Chiesa to become an extraordinarily powerful man in New Jersey politics.  Christie's longtime friend could find himself on short lists for Chief of Staff, Counsel to the Governor, and Attorney General.

The 44-year-old Chiesa and Christie were law partners at Dughi, Hewit & Palatucci and went to the U.S. Attorney's office together in 2002.  Chiesa served as Chief of the Public Protection Unit, as Counsel to the U.S. Attorney, and as Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney.  He prosecuted former Senate President John Lynch and Harry Parkin, who was Mercer County Executive Robert Prunetti's Chief of Staff.

Chiesa, who let the U.S. Attorney's office last year, has been on the inner circle of the campaign for governor.

Solomon Dwek and a bunch of allegedly corrupt public officials may have indirectly delivered The Record's endorsement to Gov. Jon Corzine.  Sources say that Corzine had settled on State Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Metuchen) as his running mate before a massive number of arrests on the morning of July 23 made him change his mind and pick State Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck).  In their editorial, The Record said that Weinberg's presence on the Democratic ticket tipped the scale in Corzine's favor.

The arrests as part of Operation Bid Rig, which gained national attention that day because it also involved Rabbis and the sale of human body parts, caused Corzine to rethink the Buono selection.  Buono had been a protégé of former Senate President John Lynch (D-New Brunswick), who went to prison on federal corruption charges; Weinberg had a reputation for supporting governmental transparency and was a rival of ex-Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero.

Dislodged from his seat of power and relegated now to a halfway house in Newark, former Middlesex County Democratic Party Chairman John Lynch sits in a landscape in which this gubernatorial contest unfolds and the candidate from his party fights for political survival.

Indicted for failing to report income by former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie (now the Republican nominee for governor), convicted and sentenced in 2006 to three years and three months in prison, Gov. Jim McGreevey's political genii and hard-nosed boss of the Raritan River rustbelt occupies political no man's land while Corzine flails and discord punctuates much of the sprawling county he once ruled.

"We need John Lynch," one Middlesex County Democratic Party insider moaned a coupled of weeks ago at the issuance of yet another poll showing incumbent Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine struggling to get his chin over 40% and eight points behind Christie.

"He's a missed leader in Middlesex," County Democratic Party Chairman Joe Spicuzzo said of his party forbearer. "He had his own style and it was successful. I talk to him once a week. He's doing fine and will get out around Nov. 13th."

In the old days, State Senators either moved up (often to a judgeship) or out.  Of the Senators who have served since 1845, when a new State Constitution began elected one Senator from every county, only eleven men have spent more than twenty years in the Senate.  Of those eleven, four are there now, and another two left within the last decade.

New Jersey's longest-serving State Senators, since 1845:

Independent gubernatorial candidate Gary T. Steele

Wounded over not being able to compete in televised debates with top-tier gubernatorial candidates, independents not named Chris Daggett plan to huddle over the next two weeks to come up with their own forum, said Gary T. Steele, an attorney from Kinnelon who's running for governor but can't raise the money to be competitive.

Steele's tired of the two parties and says most people tell him they're disillusioned with both Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine and his challenger, Republican Chris Christie, a former U.S. Attorney.

"The first thing people tell me is, 'We got to get rid of the guy who's in there,'" said Steele. "The second thing they tell me is, 'And the other guy isn't any better.'"

As for former regional Environmental Protection Agency head Daggett, who raised the $340,000 required to participate in debates, Steele said, "He was in the DEP (state Department of Environmental Protection) too, under (former Gov. Tom) Kean. He's tied to one of the two main parties. He's essentially a Republican."

Gov. Jon Corzine and state Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Metuchen).

Silver medalist state Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Metuchen), who lost to state Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck) in the lieutenant governor's contest last week, objected to the way the New York Times characterized her in its Saturday morning coverage of Gov. Jon Corzine's LG drama.

Zeroing in on the 74-year old Weinberg's boss fighting resume, the paper described Buono, by contrast, as the "flashier" candidate and protege of jailed ex-Middlesex County Democratic boss John Lynch.

"I'm nobody's protege," said Buono. "I got to where I am because I worked hard. I'm very proud of that."

Several party sources confirm that Corzine was primed to pick Buono before Thursday, when the feds pulled busloads of shackled politicians and operatives charged with corruption up to the doors of FBI headquarters in Newark.

The governor almost immediately embraced obvious anti-boss poster child Weinberg, additionally a personal comfort zone choice for Corzine as the Bergen anti-establishment senator has been a longtime ally.

SOMERVILLE - Striking the familiar podium pose of a law enforcement official, this time with the accoutrements of county brass behind him, GOP gubernatorial candidate Christopher Christie today vowed to reduce violent crime as governor and stem the spillover of urban gang violence into the suburbs.

"We need a governor who understands that we need to get violent criminals with handguns off our streets," said the former U.S. Attorney, standing in Veterans Memorial Plaza near the Somerset County Courthouse as all eleven Republican county sheriffs endorsed him for Governor.

"We have a lot more to do to fight violent crime," said Christie. "Anyone who travels with any frequency around this state knows we need to do much more. Mayor (Cory) Booker entered a partnership with the U.S. Attorney's Office, and it has been effective in Newark, but there is much more."

Republicans have never won in the 20th district, one of districts in the state that have never flipped parties. State Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Elizabeth) won 57% in the GOP landslide year of 1991, the worst general election showing of his 32-year political career.

There was a redistricting frenzy after the U.S. Supreme Court's Reynolds v. Sims one man, one vote ruling of 1964.  The Legislature had a new map for the 1965 election, followed by additional maps in 1967, 1969, 1971, and 1973.  It wasn't until 1973 that New Jersey went to forty districts, each with one Senate seat and two Assembly seats.  Since that map, about three-quarters of the districts have elected legislators from both parties. 

The current 5th district went Democratic in 1973 when Assembly Minority Leader John Horn ousted one-term Republican State Sen. Frank Italiano.  Italiano was the last Republican legislator from the City of Camden.  He resigned his seat during the lame duck session after his appointment to the Superior Court.

Republicans have held the Somerset County-based 16th district, although future Commissioner of Human Services Tim Carden nearly won an Assembly seat in 1977, even though State Sen. Raymond Bateman was at the top of the ticket as the GOP candidate for Governor.

Democrats have never lost the Middlesex-based 17th, which was dominated by the father and son John Lynch team despite the younger Lynch's near-loss to Edward Tiller in 1991.  The district was briefly represented by a Republican when Assemblywoman Angela Perun switched parties after Democrats dropped her from their ticket in 1985.  As a Republican, she lost by just a few hundred votes to the Mayor of Piscataway, Bob Smith.

In 1991, Republicans almost won an Assembly seat in the Union County-based 20th, when Richard Hunt came within 900 votes of beating the venerable Thomas Dunn, the seven-term Mayor of Elizabeth and former State Senator.  Raymond Lesniak won a fourth term with 57% of the vote, the lowest general election percentage of his thirty year political career.

Three Essex County districts have never elected Republicans: the ones now represented by Richard Codey, Ronald Rice and Teresa Ruiz.  Another Essex district, won by Democrats in 1973 when Nutley Mayor Carmen Orechio ousted Republican State Sen. Michael Giuliano, regularly elected Democrats and Republicans to the Assembly until it was eliminated in 1991.  The seat was shifted to Ocean and Burlington counties, and now the 30th only elects Republicans.

While Republicans held four Hudson County Assembly seats (Districts 32 and 33) from 1986 to 1988 - their first legislative victory since 1920 - Democrats have never lost the 31st.  Their closest call came in 1991, when Bret Schundler won 42% against Democratic State Sen. Edward O'Connor.  Schundler was elected Mayor the following year in a non-partisan race. 

In Bergen County, Democrats have kept a firm grip on the 37th since Matthew Feldman ousted Republican State Sen. Joseph Woodcock in 1973.  And the Republicans have never lost in the 40th, which now includes parts of Passaic and Essex counties.

Under the current map drawn in 2001, districts 1, 2, 4, 7, 12, 14, 36, and 38 have been won by at least one Democrat and one Republican. 

Over the years, there have been some surprise winners - usually in a landslide year like 1973, 1985 or 1991.  A partial list includes:

Jeffrey Chiesa last left his post as Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney for New Jersey and has joined Wolff and Samson, a large North Jerey law firm.  Chiesa's resignation from the federal prosecutor's office was effective last Friday. 

Chiesa, 42, prosecuted several high profile federal corruption cases, including former Senate President John Lynch and Harry Parkin, the former Chief of Staff to Mercer County Executive Robert Prunetti.  He was also part of the team that won an indictment against ex-State Sen. Joseph Coniglio, whose trial begins on March 23.