Ken Zisa

HACKENSACK -- If it comes down to a battle between Assemblyman Gordon Johnson (D-Englewood) and Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D-Englewood) to succeed state Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck), Johnson thinks it will remain civil.

“I’m not going to allow my ambitions to override my friendships,” he said while waiting in line for Gov. Corzine's rally with President Obama. 

The prospect of Weinberg moving into the State House as lieutenant governor might have seemed far fetched three months ago, when the massive corruption sting helped convince Corzine to choose Weinberg as his No. 2 based on her reformist credentials.  

At the time, Christie commanded a lead that many polls put in the double digits. But since then, those poll numbers have tightened to a dead heat, and the idea of a Lieutenant Governor Weinberg seems much more realistic. 

Former Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero testified that he "was not happy" after Bergenfield hired a Republican as their top lawyer in January 2001, The Record reported today.   Ferriero said he recalled speaking with then-Mayor Robert Rivas in December 2000, but indicated that he did not recall meeting him for lunch.

Ferriero's displeasure with Rivas likely played into the 2001 race for State Assembly in District 37.  The incumbent, Ken Zisa (D-Hackensack) was giving up his Assembly seat to run for Bergen County Sheriff, and Rivas wanted the Democratic nomination.  Instead, Ferriero picked Gordon Johnson, a career law enforcement official from Englewood.  Rivas ran against the organization in the primary, and lost to Johnson 7,653 to 1,662.  The top vote-getter in that primary was Assemblywoman Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck), who received 7,976 votes.

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.

If Loretta Weinberg is elected Lt. Governor in November, it would mean a January 2010 special election convention to fill her 37th district State Senate seat.  Democrats say the four leading candidates would be Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D-Englewood), Assemblyman Gordon Johnson (D-Englewood), outgoing Englewood Mayor Michael Wildes, and former Assemblyman Ken Zisa.  Huttle's husband is the Democratic candidate to succeed Wildes as Mayor.

"I intend to move up to the state senate, if the opportunity arises," Johnson told PolitickerNJ.com last month.

Zisa's fortunes could depend on the outcome of former Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero's federal corruption trial.  Zisa and Ferriero are longtime allies.

Bergen County Democratic Organization spokesman Bill Maer called the lawsuit filed against Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa that includes Freeholder Tomas Padilla as a co-defendant a “political hatchet job.”  

“This is politically motivated. There’s no basis of fact. It’s being done for political reasons,” he said.  "Anyone can file a lawsuit... and it's important for people to withold judgment until it's been adjudicated."

Maer said that he can’t speak to the accusations against Zisa, a former assemblyman who has played a prominent role in the local Democratic Party, but that the linkage to Padilla in the complaint is a stretch.

Although the lawsuit against Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa names a sitting Democratic freeholder as a co-defendant and charges that another Democratic freeholder who’s up for reelection this year benefited from Zisa’s alleged shakedowns of subordinate police officers, Bergen County Republican Chairman Bob Yudin is not going to make an issue out of it just yet.

“It’s really too early to tell. These are allegations and in a civil suit a person can make any kind of allegations they want,” he said.

The suit, filed by six current Hackensack police officers and one former member of the force, names Tomas Padilla – a Hackensack policeman who has been a freeholder since 2005 and is a hopeful to be appointed U.S. Marshall – as a defendent along with Zisa, who it accuses of pressuring officers to donate to his and Padilla's political campaigns.  It also alleges that a co-defendant, Local 9 union President Phillip Carroll, donated union dues to fund campaigns for Zisa and Padilla without the plaintiffs’ consent. 

A lawsuit filed against Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa alleging that he extorted campaign contributions from police officers for his campaigns for State Assembly and for other candidates is likely to end Bergen County Freeholder Tomas Padilla's campaign for U.S. Marshal.  Padilla, a Hackensack police captain, is Zisa's co-defendant.  While the allegations against Zisa and Padilla remain unproven, it is unlikely that the White House would nominate a candidate for a federal law enforcement post while a lawsuit that alleges political shakedowns and retaliations against police officers hangs over his head.

Look for Padilla to drop his bid to succeed U.S. Marshal James Plousis soon.  This could put Bergen County Sheriff Leo McGuire, who dropped out and endorsed Padilla, back in the game.  Padilla reportedly had the backing of U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-Hoboken), while U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park) is reportedly supporting Lourdes Timberman Correa, a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Marshal's office. 

Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa has been accused of extorting money from police officers under his charge to finance his political campaigns, The Record reports.    

A group of current and former Hackensack police officers filed a federal lawsuit against Zisa, a former assemblyman who ran an intra-party campaign against state Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck) in 2005 and has continued to hold out hope of returning to the legislature.  In 2007, he ran but aborted an assembly primary campaign against Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D-Englewood) and Gordon Johnson (D-Englewood).  Early last year, he said he planned to run again, but the candidacy never came to fruition.  

Also named as a defendant in the suit is Freeholder Tomas Padilla, who is an officer in the department and a hopeful for U.S. Marshall, along with the city of Hackensack, City Attorney Joseph Zisa (Ken Zisa’s cousin), and several other officials.  

According to the paper, the six officers and one former officer who filed the suit alleged that Zisa used his position as head of the department – which he has held since 1995 -- to influence his own races for assembly, state senate and sheriff. It also charges that he wielded his power to influence races for freeholder and union positions.  Those that did not go along with Zisa’s “shakedowns,” they allege, were retaliated against through official channels like demotions, undesirable assignments, denial of promotions and even being brought up on disciplinary charges.

Click here to read the 55-page complaint (pdf).

Updated
If Loretta Weinberg is elected Lt. Governor in November, it would mean a January 2010 special election convention to fill her 37th district State Senate seat.  Democrats say the four leading candidates would be Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D-Englewood), Assemblyman Gordon Johnson (D-Englewood), outgoing Englewood Mayor Michael Wildes, and former Assemblyman Ken Zisa.  Huttle's husband is the Democratic candidate to succeed Wildes as Mayor.

"I intend to move up to the state senate, if the opportunity arises," Johnson told PolitickerNJ.com today.

Should Johnson or Valerie Huttle go to the Senate, look for one of the Democrats on the Teaneck Township Council to move up to the Assembly, as well as Cid Wilson, a party leader from Leonia who backed off a primary challenge against Huttle and Johnson (D-Englewood) in 2007 and 2009.  That race would be decided in a subsequent special election convention.

Michael Kasparian succeeded Joe Ferriero as Bergen County Democratic Chairman ten weeks ago.

Since taking over one of the most powerful county political parties in the state just ten weeks ago, Bergen County Democratic Chairman Michael Kasparian has brought a leadership style to the job that's drastically different from his predecessor, Joe Ferriero.

"I think in general in politics, the catalyst for conflicts is people or factions feelings alienated," said Kasparian, who served on Barack Obama's National Finance Committee and said that Obama's "no drama" slogan resonated with him.  "If you don't have the ability to sit down with someone and listen to a contrarian view without getting emotional and excited to the extent you can't be constructive, then you don't deserve a seat at the table. That's the kind of discipline I want our party to implement."

Ferriero, who supported Kasparian to take over the party several months after his indictment for alleged corruption, was flamboyant, high profile and autocratic.  Kasparian is quiet, plodding and open to compromise, according to members of both sides of a major party schism.

"It's a very different party today than it was a year ago. It's not focused on any individual.  It's focused on the party itself," said Democratic Freeholder David Ganz, who was loyal to Ferriero and supported Kasparian's ascendancy to the post.