Kevin O'Toole

GOP candidate Chris Christie

If Christopher Christie had disclosed that Lambertville Police issued him three tickets in the fall of 2005, Republicans would not have vigorously pursued the resignation of then-Attorney General Zulima Farber during the summer of 2006, argue Democrats who see an emerging pattern of hypocrisy in the latest Christie behind-the-wheel story.

According to police, Christie, the Republican candidate for governor, identified himself as the U.S. Attorney both at a September 2005 Lambertville police stop where he was allowed to drive away an unregistered vehicle - reported last week - and at the scene of a 2002 traffic accident in which a motorcyclist went to the hospital after Christie drove the wrong way down a one-way street, the Star-Ledger reported today.

Farber, who had been named as the state's top law enforcement official by Gov. Jon Corzine, showed up at the Fairview scene of a May 2006 police stoppage in a government vehicle, in an incident that highlighted the Attorney General's failure to satisfy Republican lawmakers who months earlier during her confirmation hearing grilled her about her blemish-heavy driving record. The incident caused her to resign eight months into her tenure and caused some political problems for the fledgling Corzine administration.

Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Princeton), who said he's probably racked up more tickets than any other legislator in the Assembly, said he's never identified himself as an elected official when he gets stopped.
 
"It's a little self-serving for me to mention it maybe, but I just have never felt that you should throw your title around," said Gusciora. "I cringed in both instances - Christie's and Farber's.  It just makes us all look bad."
 
But Gusciora said he believes Christie's story is worse than Farber's, because of what he identifies as the former U.S. Attorney's hypocrisy.

Terrorist Megrahi Killed 33 New Jersey Residents in Bombing of Pan Am Flight 103

Senator Kevin O’Toole (R-40) expressed outrage today at new reports that convicted Pan Am Flight 103 bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi may have been released from imprisonment by the Scottish government in exchange for favorable terms in a trade deal involving Libyan oil. O’Toole called on New Jersey’s congressional delegation to demand that an official inquiry be conducted by Congress to uncover the details of Megrahi’s release.

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State Sen. Minority Whip Kevin O'Toole (R-Cedar Grove)

While Democrats struggled to find good news in Quinnipiac University poll numbers that still show Gov. Jon Corzine trailing GOP challenger Chris Christie, 37-47%, state Sen. Kevin O'Toole (R-Cedar Grove) said the rival majority party simply can't spin their way out of the incumbent's campaign troubles.

"They can't be happy," said O'Toole. "He's still hanging ten points back and you've got Obama's national numbers simultaneously sinking and independents fearful of nationalized healthcare. It's not a good trend.

"Consider this," O'Toole added. "Chris has had two hands tied behind his back because he doesn't have the money Corzine has had to spend on advertising. Chris's job was to survive and be ready to come out fighting a few points behind Corzine come Labor Day. Here he is, ten points up and he's just now starting to get his message out. If you ask me he's weathered a storm."

After a tough week answering questions about his loan to his former employee, career federal prosecutor Michele Brown, Republican gubernatorial candidate Christopher Christie this afternoon tried  to change the subject with an offensive on Gov. Jon Corzine, accusing the Democratic incumbent of engineering an income reporting loophole that allowed major corporations like Enron to hide debt.

When Corzine was CEO of Goldman Sachs in the 1990s, Christie said, he was integral in creating Monthly Income Preferred Securities (MIPS), which provided a way for corporations to make debt look like equity, and later lobbied President Bill Clinton in a letter, also signed by 34 others, against reigning the practice in.

"The Governor, as CEO of Goldman Sachs, personally lobbied to get a tax loophole for Enron to make debt look like equity.  What this did was contribute, as you all know, to the precipitous fall of Enron when things that looked like equity turned out to be debt," said Christie during a conference call with reporters."

GOP gubernatorial nominee Chris Christie, far left, sits with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Paul Sarlo (D-Wood-Ridge) and Sen. Nia Gill (D-Montclair). U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson) appears at far right.

WAYNE - Gov. Jon Corzine's ceremonial swearing-in of Camelia Mercedes Valdes as the new Passaic County prosecutor this evening featured the shared-stage presence of Republican gubernatorial rival Chris Christie, who smudged somewhat the Democrats' hopes of a singular Corzine imprimatur on the first Latina prosecutor in New Jersey.

Although Wayne's solid GOP, this is a Democratic base country county, and for Corzine to have to worry about a split-screen effect with Christie had Democratic Party operatives quietly fuming up and down the wings of the auditorium here at the Passaic County Technical Institute.

Both parties credit Passaic County Democratic Party Chairman John Currie - who sat next to the governor during the ceremony as the counterpoint to Christie, who settled into a chair beside Senate Judiciary Chairman Paul Sarlo - with kick-starting the Valdes as prosecutor concept on marching order's from the Governor's Office to find a Latino(a) candidate for the vacancy.

The good news for Democrats in this county where Latino registered voters form well over a fifth of the voting population and where registered D's outnumber R's 78,009 to 47,498? Currie tracked down a hard-nosed white collar crime and financial fraud prosecutor with courtroom experience who was also Dominican American. They checked out the resume and to a man/woman the conclusion was competence. And then there was the history-making factor. Valdes would be the first Dominican-American lead prosecutor in the country, creating an opportunity for Corzine to oversee a Sotomayor scenario two months before Election Day in a state with a big and growing Latino voting bloc.

Gov. Jon Corzine and former CWA president Carla Katz

Carla Katz’s name has surfaced in the gubernatorial contest, but it’s not coming from Republican gubernatorial nominee Chris Christie.  

Even in light of potentially damaging news accounts about Christie’s loan to high ranking U.S. Attorney staffer Michele Brown, his campaign has no plans to hit back by raising Governor Corzine’s relationship with the former leader of the state’s largest public workers’ union, who he dated before becoming governor.  .

“Chris has made a real effort to run a different kind of campaign and has from the very beginning stipulated that this will be a campaign about the issues,” said Christie advisor Maria Comella.  “In a state that is facing the highest unemployment in 32 years the highest tax burden and a 32% up-tick in home foreclosures, these are the issues that voters are going to go into the booth to make a decision on in November, and they’re exactly what Chris is going to be talking about.”  

In a February, Christie told The Record’s Chares Stile “you won't hear anything about Carla Katz and e-mails out of me and or out of my campaign.” 

Gov. Jon Corzine campaigns earlier this week in Irvington with Mayor Wayne Smith.

A combustible gubernatorial campaign ignited this week with competing newsflashes that do damage in both camps - just how much damage is creating accelerated intrigue with 82 days until Election Day.

Republican GOP nominee, former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, endured a headline and ongoing questions about conversations he had with Karl Rove, political mastermind for former President George W. Bush, still a radioactive presence in this mostly Democratic state.

But Corzine also caught newscycle flak this week.

Already trying to put distance on a bombshell from last month in which federal law enforcement officers arrested 29 mostly Democratic politicians and political operatives on corruption charges, the governor suffered his own headline headaches with news that 10 adult training programs run by the state Department of Human Service's Division of Developmental Disabilities blew $1.4 million.

In addition, Corzine fired former state PBA President Michael Madonna from his post as a Commissioner of the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor after the New York Inspector General issued a report alleging considerable abuse, including "misusing federal Homeland Security funding, hiring unqualified cops, and allowing convicted felons to get jobs."

The NFL Giants office building on Route 3, built by the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority on the Meadowlands site.

As State Sen. Kevin O'Toole (R-Cedar Grove) prepares to introduce legislation that will stop professional sports teams who don't use New Jersey on their uniforms from receiving any public dollars, two key lawmakers today praised the New Jersey Devils for their state pride.

"The New Jersey Devils are a class organization who have made our great state their home. And we share in the pride that the words ‘New Jersey' represents in their name," said State Sen. Joseph Vitale (D-Woodbridge).

Teams that play in New Jersey and don't use "NJ" on their uniforms are beginning to face criticism from public officials.  Earlier this week, O'Toole slammed the Nets for their decision to remove "NJ" from their team uniforms while on the road. 

Vitale is objecting to a super-sized "NY" that appears on the side of a Meadowlands office building that a state agency built for the Giants.

"It is my hope that the New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority will feel that same level of pride and recognition that we all do by removing the ‘NY' logo from a building that real New Jerseyans have mostly paid for," Vitale told PolitickerNJ.com.

Last year, Assembly Majority Conference Leader Joan Quigley (D-Jersey City) strongly objected when the NY/NJ Metro Stars changed their team name to Red Bull New York after taxpayers helped the soccer franchise finance a $165 million stadium in Harrison.

"I've got to hand it to the Devils for not only making New Jersey home, but doing it with pride as other teams have kicked New Jersey around, even as they benefited from support from New Jersey fans and taxpayers," Quigley said.

But Gov. Jon Corzine said he is unlikely to support legislation to tie state funding to team uniforms.

"It would be an overreaction for us to demand that they put the logos on their jerseys. Would there be an advertising value for us if they put 'New Jersey' on their jerseys? Yes," Corzine told PolitickerNJ.com.

Another legislator, Assemblyman Michael Doherty (R-Oxford) says that he opposes the use of public funds to subsidize any professional sports teams, no matter what.

"I hope the Nets stay in New Jersey and we should not use any tax dollars to support professional sports teams regardless of whether they use New Jersey of their logo or not," said Doherty.

The new Giants corporate offices at the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority on Route 3, financed with New Jersey tax dollars, sports a huge NY logo on the side of the building

Senate Minority Whip Kevin O'Toole (R-Cedar Grove) says he's ready for New Jersey to get tough with professional sports teams that don't show their state pride, and slammed the Nets for their decision to remove "NJ" from their team uniforms while on the road.

"New Jersey's professional sports teams, the Nets, Jets and Giants, have no problem feeding at the taxpayer funded trough, yet seem to forget who their benefactors are when they order the teams' uniforms," O'Toole said. "The taxpayers of this state have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into infrastructure upgrades in the Meadowlands where all the teams play their home games. Is it too much to ask that professional sports teams that benefit from the support of the New Jersey taxpayer recognize the state on their uniforms?
 
"These teams make hundreds of millions of dollars a year," O'Toole added. "They should not receive a single concession from the state until they get an attitude readjustment."

A spokesman for O'Toole says the Office of Legislative Services is drafting a bill that would prohibit the use of tax dollars to help teams that don't carry the New Jersey name.
 
Dr. James W. Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, said team uniforms that boast state identity helps boost New Jersey's economy.
 
"Certainly having New Jersey's name on a jersey couldn't hurt our economy," Hughes told PolitickerNJ.com. "You look at any New York Giants or Jets game and the TV pans Manhattan and New York, not New Jersey. Anything positive to highlight the fact that New Jersey is a big league player would be beneficial to our economy in some way."

Says Despite Release of Ling and Lee, More Needs to Be Done

Senator Kevin O’Toole (R-40) congratulated former President Bill Clinton for his successful effort to secure the release of two American reporters who had been imprisoned by North Korea. The reporters, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were pardoned and released following a successful diplomatic effort by Clinton, including a visit by the former President to Pyongyang.

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