Joseph Ferriero

21 included on the 2008 PolitickerNJ.com Power List were dropped this year, including four of the top ten. Some walked away: Bradley Abelow's power came from his position as Chief of Staff to Gov. Jon Corzine, while at the same time retaining virtual control over the State Treasurer's office.  John Mara got his new football stadium and went away, declining to use the influence that comes with owning a popular sports team; he loses points for putting a big "NY" logo outside the new Giants offices that New Jerseyans helped pay for.  We didn't include gubernatorial candidates on the list, so Christopher Christie, on the list since 2002, is off for this year.  Either way, he'll probably be back, either as Governor or as a powerbroker lawyer. Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero resigned and is awaiting his trial on federal corruption charges.  Fran Dauth, Gary Rose and Kathy Crotty retired.  Skip Hidlay moved from the politically influential Asbury Park Press to the move passive Home News Tribune.  Bob Ingle? Well, he's still Bob Ingle.

Here's the list of former Power List members:

A new indictment was filed on Tuesday against Dennis Oury, the former counsel to the Bergen County Democratic Organization, alleging that he failed to pay a portion of his federal income taxes over the last three years.  Oury is set to go on trial this fall on charges that he and Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero formed a private grants company that received a contract with Bergenfield, where he was the Township Attorney.  The new charges accuse Oury of not reporting his $25,000 annual income or file tax returns.

Nicholas Lonzisero and Judith Fisher, the Republican candidates for State Assembly in the 38th district.

Bergen County Republican Chairman Bob Yudin said today that the corruption allegation against Ridgefield Mayor Anthony Suarez helps put the 38th Legislative District in play.

"It is in play because of the rampant Democratic corruption, first with Senator (Joseph) Coniglio and now with Mayor Suarez," said Yudin.

The 38th is considered a relatively safe Democratic district, although Republicans have indicated that they're keeping an eye on it this year.  Even after Coniglio (D-Paramus) had to drop his candidacy for re-election to a third term after receiving a target letter from the U.S. Attorney's office in 2007, the Democratic slate, led by Robert Gordon (D-Fair Lawn) as Coniglio's replacement, won easily.

But Yudin thinks the corruption issue may have reached critical mass there.  Republican candidate Nick Lonzisero is council president in Suarez's town, and, if Suarez resigns, he will become interim mayor.  

In April, Coniglio was convicted of steering state funds to Hackensack University Medical Center, which employed him as a consultant.  Former Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero and ex-BCDO counsel Dennis Oury are set to have corruption trials that parallel the general election.  Yudin thinks all that, combined having former U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie - who got the ball rolling on the investigations that ensnared the Democrats - at the top of the ticket, will make corruption a winning issue.

Yudin's focus on corruption - or the "corruption tax" that he ran last year's unsuccessful freeholder campaigns on - has drawn criticism from some Bergen Republicans in the past.

Four years ago, Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero wanted his political ally, former Assemblyman Ken Zisa, to take a vacant State Senate seat in the 37th district.  Corzine, then the Democratic nominee for governor, jumped into the tumultuous world of Bergen County politics and endorsed a Weinberg, who had been one of the first elected officials to back him for the U.S. Senate in 2000.

Ferriero was livid.  His support of Corzine earlier that year helped push Acting Governor Richard Codey out of the Democratic primary. Ferriero wanted his guy in the Senate, where the power of senatorial courtesy can be invaluable to a County Chairman.

Corzine and Ferriero had a decent enough relationship that 89-year-old Nancy Corzine, a retired school teacher from Oak Park, Illinois and Corzine’s mother, contributed $37,000 to the Bergen County Democratic Organization.

When the District 37 Democratic County Committee voted, Zisa defeated Weinberg by one vote.  Weinberg won after an extended court battle that demonstrated enough voter fraud to give her a victory.  It took Corzine and Ferriero a while to be friends again.

Charles Stile's must-read column in The Record today underscored what many in Bergen County and around the state have been saying for many months: newly-elected Bergen County Democratic Chairman Michael Kasparian has been reluctant to put an infrastructure in place that would ensure a Democratic victory this November for Jon Corzine and freshmen Freeholders Vernon Walton and Julie O'Brien.

Unlike his predecessor Joseph Ferriero, Kasparian has never served as an elected official and has no experience in running any type of political organization.  He has surrounded himself with Ferriero holdovers, including BCDO spokesman and Trenton lobbyist Bill Maer, leading some to complain that he is sending the wrong message to the voters about cleaning up the county organization even as he has refused to utilize some of the organizational methods Ferriero had in place to turn Bergen County into a Democratic stronghold.

PolitickerNJ.com

Republican gubernatorial candidate Christopher Christie and Bergen County Clerk Kathleen Donovan in Rutherford this morning. Donovan is reportedly high on Christie's short list of Lt. Governor candidates

RUTHERFORD - In what looked like an audition for Lieutenant Governor, Bergen County Clerk Kathleen Donovan hosted Republican gubernatorial nominee Chris Chrsitie in her hometown today. 

Donovan, a five-term County Clerk, is said to be near the top of Christie's shortlist for the state's number two spot.  And while standing in front of a group of elderly voters at a senior center, Christie dropped what initially sounded like a hint about a Christie/Donovan ticket.

"She has been with me every step of the way, and I hope that we will be together every step of the way, and I trust we will be into the November election," he said.

But when asked to elaborate on the comment by a reporter, Christie walked it back, repeating previous statements that Donovan, along with several other potential running mates, would make a good choice, and that he would take his time making the decision.

No Republican has ever won a statewide election without carrying Bergen County, a point that helps Donovan, who was the top Republican vote getter when she ran for re-election in 2008.  A former Port Authority Commissioner and GOP State Chairman, she represented heavily blue collar and politically competitive South Bergen in the State Assembly after ousting incumbents in 1985.

Christie, however, downplayed that speculation, arguing that voters would choose based on who is at the top of the ticket.

"I don't think people go into the voting booth and say ‘I don't really like Chris, but I like Kathe, so I'll vote for him and maybe he'll die,'" he said.

There is some speculation among Democrats - and most certainly without confirmation from Gov. Jon Corzine's campaign - that State Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck) might be receiving more than just courteous consideration for Lt. Governor.

The arguments in support of Weinberg:

Two Bergenfield Councilmen tossed off the organization line by Democratic Municipal Chairman Kevin Clancy easily won the Democratic primary.  With the help of State Sen. Loretta Weinberg, Thomas Lodato and Robert Gillman held their seats against Clancy's candidates, Fedra Lolos and Fernando Vargas.  Clancy was a close ally of former Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero.

The Bergen County Democratic Organization (BCDO), which in the past year has seen indictments of its party chairman, counsel and the conviction of a state senator, set up an ethics training program for all county committee members and party officials last week.

The program, however, is not mandatory, which BCDO chairman Michael Kasparian called for when he was first seeking to replace indicted Chairman Joseph Ferriero. 

Kasparian made ethics training a major part of his campaign to succeed Ferriero, listing it as the first item of his six plank platform.  Although not mandatory, he's encouraging county committee members to go one of two routes: either attend a May 20 ethics training seminar at Bergen Community College, where Gov. Jon Corzine will be a guest, or watch a Power Point presentation online before submitting a test. 

"The county committee people are elected officials, so as a private organization, it's not the chairman's intent to make this mandatory," said BCDO counsel Joe Ariyan, who added that he did not believe that Kasparian had the legal authority to force ethics training on committee members, even if he wanted to.  "It is encouraged, because the chairman ran on a platform in part on ethics reform, awareness and transparency."

The 26-page Power Point presentation was put together by retired Superior Court Judge Daniel Mecca.  It does not delve into exhaustive detail, instead covering the basics of potential conflicts created by business relationships with local entities, fundraising, event attendance, gift acceptance and other prohibited outside activities.  It outlines when should recuse themselves, and penalties they can face if they do not. 

Left to right: Joseph Coniglio (D-Paramus), Louis Kosco (R-Paramus), and Rose Heck (R-Hasbrouck Heights)

Joseph Coniglio, described during his federal corruption trial as a man with unspectatular intellectual aptitude, was elected to the New Jersey State Senate in 2001, defeating three-term Republican State Sen. Louis Kosco (R-Paramus) by 3,543 votes, a 53%-47% margin. 

Redistricting altered the 38th district, which had been a competitive legislative district through the 1980’s, in favor of the Democrats 2001.  Two large Democratic towns, Fair Lawn and Fort Lee, were added to the district.  Joseph Ferriero, who was in his fourth year as the Bergen County Democratic Chairman, picked Coniglio, a 58-year-old plumber and union official, to run for the Senate with the hope that the former two-term Paramus Councilman would hold down Kosco’s hometown Paramus plurality and build margins in other parts of the district.  The strategy worked: Coniglio won Fair Lawn by 1,145 votes, Fort Lee by 2,141 and Cliffside Park by 1,989.  He lost Paramus by just 877 votes.  In 1997, Kosco won Paramus by 2,781 in his 57%-43% victory over Democrat Valerie Vainieri Huttle.

Besides redistricting, Coniglio benefitted from some coat tails at the top of the ticket.  In the race for Governor, Democrat James E. McGreevey carried District 38 by a 61%-39% margin over Republican Bret Schundler. In the race for two State Assembly seats, Republican Rose Heck won re-election by a narrow 468 vote margin, but Democrat Matt Ahearn ousted GOP incumbent Nicholas Felice in a race where just 803 votes separated the top vote getter from the candidate in fourth place.

After the ’01 election, Republicans and Democrats each had twenty Senate seats and Republicans viewed Coniglio as one of their top targets in 2003 as they sought to regain control of the Senate.  Heck gave up her Assembly seat to run for the Senate, but the GOP could not compete with Democrats financially and Coniglio won his Democratic-leaning district 56%-44%, by a margin of 4,756 votes.  Republicans also lost Heck’s Assembly seat.