John Russo

Edward Werner has filed a lawsuit against the state and Attorney General Anne Milgram, alleging that politics played a key role in his termination last year as Acting Executive Director of the Victims of Crime Compensation Office. 

Werner, whose eleven year old son was murdered in 1997, says that he was fired for seeking to eliminate waste in state agency that compensates the victims of violent crime and for moving to reform a system that permitted no-bid construction contracts.

He alleges that then-State Senate Majority Leader Bernard Kenny (D-Hoboken) pushed him to protect the job of Cathleen Russo Delanoy, a lawyer for the agency whose position could have been eliminated if legislation to reorganize the agency was approved.  Delanoy is the daughter of former Senate President John Russo and the sister-in-law of State Sen. Robert Singer (R-Lakewood).

Lawyers will be the minority on the 2009 State Senate Judiciary Committee headed by engineer Paul Sarlo (D-Wood-Ridge)

For the first time since the new State Constitution was approved in 1947, a majority of members of the 2009 New Jersey State Senate Judiciary Committee -- six of eleven -- are not lawyers.  Chairman Paul Sarlo and Vice Chairman John Girgenti are not attorneys, as is fellow Democrat Loretta Weinberg.  Among the Republicans, Gerald Cardinale (who serves as the unofficial ranking Republican), Joseph Kyrillos and Jennifer Beck are not attorneys.

The lawyers on the Judiciary Committee are Democrats Raymond Lesniak, Nicholas Scutari, Robert Smith and Nia Gill, and Republican Bill Baroni. 

Senate President Richard Codey, who is responsible for the non-lawyer a majority -- a move some pols are applauding -- is one of a few non-lawyers to serve as Senate President.

Anne Martindell (1914-2008) served in the New Jersey State Senate from 1974 to 1977.State Sen. Anne Martindell of Princeton, who died yesterday at 93, championed the underdog throughout a life marked by public service and a thirst for knowledge and self-improvement. In the words of her son, Princeton Councilman Roger Martindell, "she fought for what she believed in, and she was gracious in the fight."

Elected to the state Senate as a Democrat in 1973 as part of the Watergate backlash that landed a number of Democrats in the Statehouse to form a 28-12 Democratic majority, Martindell served one term before becoming President Jimmy Carter’s Ambassador to New Zealand.

In her eighties, she doubled back on the college career she never completed. Sixty-years after leaving Smith College following her freshman year, Martindell obtained her Bachelor’s degree from Smith and an honorary doctorate of law in 2002.

On Thursday, news of her death brought forth an outpouring of goodwill from those who knew her and those with whom she served in Trenton, including former Gov. Brendan T. Byrne.

Carmen Orechio served in the State Senate from 1974 to 1992, and was Senate President from 1982 to 1986: He's been a Nutley Commissioner since 1968Carmen Orechio is the only former Senate President who still holds public office, and is one of eight living former Senate Presidents. With the death of 98-year-old Wesley Lance last August, the 81-year-old Orechio is now the second oldest living ex-Senate President; the oldest is Frank McDermott, 83, who ran the Senate in 1969. The other living ex-Senate Presidents: Raymond Bateman, Frank Dodd, John Russo, John Lynch, Donald DiFrancesco, and John Bennett.

Usually the Governor announces his own appointments, but this week Ocean County Prosecutor Thomas Kelaher said that his successor will be Marlene Lynch Ford, a former Democratic Assemblywoman from Ocean County.

Ford was first elected to the Legislature in 1983, defeating one-term Republican Warren Wolf (who had won an open Assembly seat in 1981 when Hazel Gluck unsuccessfully sought to move up to the Senate in a race against John Russo). At age 29, she is among the youngest women to ever win election to the New Jersey State Assembly.