L. Harvey Smith

The Jersey City mayoral campaign has spilled into a legislative race.

Former Assemblyman Louis Manzo, who is running for mayor in Jersey City's non-partisan election, has fielded two Assembly candidates to run in District 31, which he used to represent.

Ronnie Meadows, a former Hudson County freeholder candidate, and Monique Snow, a paralegal, are bracketed together with the same slogan Manzo is using for his mayoral campaign: "Change to Believe in."

Meadows and Snow are challenging Hudson County Democratic Organization (HCDO) backed incumbent Anthony Chiappone and Jersey City police detective Charles Mainor, who replaces incumbent L. Harvey Smith on the ballot.  Smith is also running for mayor.

PolitickerNJ.com has prepared a Casualty List for the New Jersey Legislature for each year since 2001.

Fourteen-term Republican John Rooney, the senior member of the State Assembly, becomes the fifth legislator not seeking re-election in 2009.  Three Assemblymen are seeking another office: Richard Merkt (R-Mendham) is running for Governor; Michael Doherty (R-Washington) is seeking State Senate seat; and L. Harvey Smith (D-Jersey City) is a candidate for Mayor. Assemblywoman Sandra Love (D-Gloucester Township) is retiring. And Eric Munoz (R-Summit) passed away earlier this month at the age of 61.

Charles Mainor, a 42-year-old Jersey City police detective, appears headed for the State Assembly.  He has emerged as the likely candidate of the Hudson County Democratic Organization in the 31st district, where Assemblyman L. Harvey Smith (D-Jersey City) is giving up his seat to run for Mayor.  He is expected to run with Assemblyman Anthony Chiappone (D-Bayonne), who has cut a deal with Democrats to keep his seat.  Mainor’s chief advocates were State Sen. Sandra Bolden Cunningham and longtime Democratic insider Joseph Cardwell, but Democrats say he has a solid relationship with the Mayor of Jersey City, Jerramiah Healy.  Sources say Mainor got the nod over Oren Dabney, who runs the Jersey City Incinerator Authority.

JERSEY CITY – Mayor Jerramiah Healy wants his constituents to know that he has a friend in Barack Obama.  

“As most of you know I was the first elected official in the State of New Jersey to endorse [Obama]. He hasn’t forgotten that,” said Healy in his opening statement at tonight’s mayoral debate.  “We’ve been awarded over $20 million in economic stimulus.”

For the first time, all five men who want to run New Jersey’s second largest city met to debate at an elementary school in the city’s Heights neighborhood tonight.   It was the second debate of the campaign season, but the first that Healy attended.  He refused to participate at yesterday’s forum at the Landmark Loew’s Jersey Theatre on the grounds that some of the moderators were biased against him.  This was the second appearance for the four other candidates: good government activist Dan Levin, former Assemblyman Louis Manzo, Assemblyman L. Harvey Smith and police detective Phil Webb.  

During the forum, which was sponsored by The Heights Coalition, Healy frequently burnished his relationship with elected officials, from the city council all the way up to the President, arguing that they had helped him secure funds and other types of outside government support for the city.

Jerramiah Healy is headed toward a landslide re-election as Mayor of Jersey City, if his own campaign polling is accurate.

Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy has a 41-point lead over former Assemblyman Louis Manzo in his bid for re-election to a third term, according to an internal poll conducted for the Healy campaign and obtained by PolitickerNJ.com.  The Benenson Strategy Group poll has Healy leading Manzo 55%-14%, with 12% for Assemblyman L. Harvey Smith and 5% for a fourth candidate, Dan Levin.

In a two-way race with Manzo, Healy leads 62%-22%.

The poll shows Healy with favorable of 74%-20%; Manzo’s favorable are at 48%-20%.  Nearly six out of ten Jersey City voters (57%) say the city is headed in the right direction, and 77% say Jersey City “is a city on the move.”

Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy has declined an invitation to participate in a major televised mayoral debate.  

Local political commentator Pat O’Melia, who organized the event and scheduled it for April 1, said that Healy Campaign Manager Bud Demellier wrote him a letter turning down his invitation because “the Mayor will give first priority to attending debates that are sponsored by respected, fair and unbiased organizations that reach a broad audience.”

All four of the city’s other mayoral candidates will participate in the debate at the Landmark Loew’s Jersey Theatre, which will be televised multiple times on Comcast.  It is going to be hosted by O’Melia and moderated by the Jersey Journal’s Agustin Torres and Earl Morgan, and the Jersey City Reporter’s Ricardo Kaulessar.  

O’Melia, who hosts a leased access television show called “The Weekly Show” as well as a radio show, said that he wants to know which of the moderators the Mayor considers unfair, biased and not respected.  

“We need to find out who gets the badge of honor, who Healy hates the most. Is it me, Augie or Earl?  We know it’s not Ricardo. Everybody loves Ricardo,” he said. 

ASSEMBLY CELEBRATES BLACK HISTORY MONTH

Annual Celebration Commemorates Significant Contributions of Groups, Individuals

(TRENTON) - Assembly Democrats today issued a multimedia package commemorating the chamber's annual celebration of Black History Month - a time to reflect and remember the individuals and groups that have contributed to the betterment or advancement of African Americans in the state and the nation.

QUIGLEY/SPENCER/SMITH/TUCKER/CRUZ-PEREZ BILL
REQUIRING PROPER BEDBUG EXTERMINATION CLEARS ASSEMBLY
Measure Stems From July Outbreak of Bedbugs in Hudson County Apartment Complexes

(TRENTON) - The Assembly today approved legislation members Joan M. Quigley, L. Grace Spencer, L. Harvey Smith, Cleopatra Tucker and Nilsa Cruz-Perez sponsored to provide additional tools for landlords and tenants to address bedbug infestations.

ASSEMBLY DEMOCRATS ISSUE MULTIMEDIA PACKAGE ON ENACTMENT OF ANTI-FORECLOSURE MEASURE

New Law Establishes Direct Lines of Help for Lenders, Borrowers

(TRENTON) - Assembly Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman and Assembly members Ralph R. Caputo, Mila M. Jasey and L. Harvey Smith today issued a multimedia package on the enactment of legislation they sponsored to aid New Jersey homeowners facing impending foreclosure.

WATSON COLEMAN/ GREEN/CAPUTO/JASEY/POU/RAMOS/VAS/SMITH ANTI-FORECLOSURE MEASURE NOW LAW

Bill Establishes Direct Lines of Help to Lenders, Borrowers

(TRENTON) – Legislation eight Assembly Democratic lawmakers sponsored to help homeowners facing impending foreclosure was signed into law today by Gov. Jon S. Corzine.

“New Jersey’s deepening mortgage crisis makes it imperative that we provide direct assistance to ensure families can stay in their homes and out of foreclosure,” said a leading sponsor, Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Mercer). “We need to open lines for borrowers and lenders to work together to preserve the dream of homeownership that is quickly becoming a nightmare for too many families.”