Mims Hackett

Robert L. Brown, who served as a State Assemblyman and as the Mayor of Orange, died yesterday.  He was 62.

Brown was elected Mayor of Orange in 1988, and went to the Legislature in 1991, after redistricting moved incumbent Harry McEnroe (D-South Orange) to another district.  He defeated Montclair Councilwoman Delores "Bobby" Reilly by a 2-1 margin in the primary in this safe Democratic district. 

In 1993, Brown challenged incumbent Richard Codey in the Democratic Senate primary and lost by a 60%-40% margin. He lost his bid for re-election to a third term as Mayor in 1996 to Mims Hackett.

Staffers working for a legislator who resigns or dies in office keep their jobs until a successor is elected and seated.  While there are no formal rules dictating how legislative offices should operate in the event of a vacancy, in recent years the Senate President and Assembly Speaker have authorized district offices to remain open and staff to continue to be paid.  Those staffs are supervised by the Senate Secretary or the Assembly Clerk, although there is relatively little oversight in those situations.

The staff of former Assemblyman Daniel Van Pelt (R-Ocean) remains intact, even though Van Pelt resigned last week after being arrested on federal corruption charges.  And while Speaker Joseph Roberts has effectively suspended two legislators facing criminal charges without pay, Joseph Vas (D-Perth Amboy) and L. Harvey Smith (D-Jersey City) continue to have district offices and staffs who report to them.

Two politicians with new jobs: former Assemblyman Anthony "Skip" Cimino is the new CEO of Robert Wood Johnson Hospital in Hamilton and West Caldwell Mayor Joseph Tempesta is the new East Hanover Township Administrator.

Cimino takes the helm of the hospital even though he has never run a health care company.  He operated a small flooring business before becoming running for the Legislature, and after he lost in 1991, he became Gov. Jim Florio's Commissioner of Personnel.  Later he worked for Schoor DePalma, the politically active engineering firm, and ran unsuccessfully for the State Senate.  His son is now a Mercer County Freeholder.

Tempesta, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for State Assembly in 2001 against John McKeon (D-West Orange) and Mims Hackett (D-Orange), spent less than two years as the administrator in Mountain Lakes before getting the East Hanover job this week.  He told The Star-Ledger that he will "waive his health insurance benefits in East Hanover," an act of tremendous sacrifice, since the taxpayers of West Caldwell give him full health benefits.

Again in an act of personal sacrifice, Tempesta supports Republican Christopher Christie for Governor despite Christie's pledge to end dual public office holding and health benefits for part-timers.

A former president of the Orange City Council pleaded guilty today in state court to fraudulently billing the city for meal expenses.

Vivian Gaunt, 71, admitted that she billed the city for meals that she never ate during her travels to conferences as a representative of the city over a six year period.  

A press release issued by the State Attorney General’s office did not say the specific amount that Gaunt billed the city for, but it did say that she has agreed to pay $250 in restitution. 

Does Gov. Jon Corzine view Joe Vas as part of the Steele/Hackett group, or the James/Bryant group?

In 2007, Gov. Jon Corzine had a litmus test when it comes to pushing state legislators accused of corrupt acts to resign: are they seeking re-election.  That's how Corzine came to call for the resignations of Assemblymen Mims Hackett (D-Orange) and Alfred Steele (D-Paterson) after their September 2007 arrests, but did not seek the ouster of State Sens. Wayne Bryant (D-Camden) and Sharpe James (D-Newark) following their indictments on federal corruption charges.  At the time, Corzine's spokeswoman explained that Hackett and Steele were candidates for office, while Bryant and James had already announced they were not seeking re-election.

After Joseph Vas was indicted on state corruption charges last week, Corzine called for his resignation from the State Assembly.  But now that Vas has said he won't be a candidate for a fourth term in 2009, will Corzine shift Vas from the Hackett/Steele category to the one reserved for Bryant/James?  His staff says no, suggesting that Corzine has a new litmus test for the current cycle: hard evidence.  According to a Corzine spokesperson, prosecutors had hard evidence - a tape - against Hackett and Steele, but did not have such evidence against Bryant and James. 

But if one were to follow Corzine's logic, the governor's call for Vas' resignation would be rescinded under both litmus tests.  Vas is not a candidate for re-election, and unless the Governor knows something that was not in Anne Milgram's indictment, no video tape of Vas' theft exists.

If Democratic leaders follow the precedent set when Alfred Steele and Mims Hackett were arrested in 2007, there will be a call for Assemblyman Joseph Vas (D-Perth Amboy) to resign his seat.  That ends the Middlesex County Democratic convention fight between Vas and South Amboy Mayor Jack O'Leary. 

John Azzarello is widely viewed as an extraordinary lawyer, the kind of guy who might wind up on a short list for U.S. Attorney or U.S. District Court Judge someday.  He's a partner at a politically influential law firm; his partners are Jack Arsenault, who was nearly James E. McGreevey's Attorney General, and John Farmer, Jr., who was Attorney General under Christine Todd Whitman and Donald DiFrancesco.  He's a former Assistant U.S. Attorney who was Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division.  He went to Washington with Tom Kean as counsel to the 9/11 Commission.

On Friday, Azzarello did what other good white collar criminal defense attorneys do - he sought the mercy of a judge who was about to sentence his client - in this case a corrupt former public official, Mims Hackett.   And while he was ultimately successful - Hackett can serve his federal and state sentences concurrently and may only have to spend six months of his five year state sentence in prison - his argument wasn't exactly up there with Temple Houston.

Here's how the Star-Ledger reported it:

Former Assemblyman Mims Hackett was sentenced to five years in state prison after admitting that the filed fake expense reimbursements while serving as Mayor of Orange.  He has already been sentenced to nine months in federal prison after his guilty plea on corruption charges last year.  The state Judge ruled that he can serve the sentences concurrently and will be eligible for parole after serving six months if he is admitted to a supervised program that includes house arrest.

Eldridge Hawkins at the opening of Obama HQ in Newark, with Irvington Mayor Wayne Smith (background, left).

ORANGE – In the city a little over a year, young Eldridge Hawkins, Jr., ran as the Obama of Orange – a new messenger intent on change in the wake of another public man’s wreckage.

As he observed his older opponent on Election Day, Hawkins brazenly likened the campaign of At-Large Councilman Donald Page to a shopworn Hillary Clinton, and compared his own to that of the hard-charging, inspirational Barack Obama.

But more than five months into his term of office as mayor, Hawkins’s critics object to what they call the 29-year old executive’s early failure to deliver the city convincingly from the era of Mims Hackett, who’s soon to be serving time in a federal pen for corruption.

A proposed $57.2 million budget is up $3.6 million from last year’s, and residents face a significant tax increase. Meanwhile, even new furnishings at City Hall can’t camouflage an entrenched cast of old regime characters. 

Marcellus Jackson, who resigned his seat as a Passaic City Councilman after admitting that he took $26,000 in bribes from an undercover FBI agent, remains involved in politics as a he awaits sentencing.  According to a report by PolitickerNJ.com's Max Pizarro, Passaic mayoral candidate Vincent Capuana has ackowledged that Jackson has been volunteering on his campaign.  Last night, he worked the door at a Capuana fundraiser collecting money from donors. “Twenty years of friendship are 20 years of friendship,” said Capuana campaign manager Jose Alex Ybarra told Pizarro.   “Loyalty is very big with many of us.”