CRYAN: COURT'S SCHOOL FUNDING DECISION 'ABSOLUTE VICTORY' FOR NEW JERSEY'S KIDS

(TRENTON) - Assemblyman Joseph Cryan (D-Union) - chairman of the Assembly Education Committee - released the following statement after learning of the state Supreme Court's ruling upholding the school funding formula and validating the approach of providing aid to children in every school district:

"The Court has handed down an absolute victory for New Jersey's school children.

"The Legislature and Governor Corzine made a promise to ensure every child has access to a quality education, regardless of where they live. Now that promise can be fulfilled.

"To those who have spent their lives opposing our efforts, the time has come to focus on improving educational outcomes for all children across the state and not on dollars, cents and lawsuits that have divided New Jersey for a generation."

“I want to see one of those Supreme Court Justices come off that bench and look into the eyes of a child who has been raped by a known sex offender and tell that child that the constitutional rights of the beast who just ruined her or his life got in the way of our community’s ability to protect you,”

Senator Diane Allen introduces vitally important legislation aimed at preventing violent gang members from escaping justice.

Death and retirements gave Democratic Governor Robert Meyner the opportunity to make eight New Jersey Supreme Court appointments during his eight years as Governor - the most for any Governor under the current State Constitution, including Alfred Driscoll, who made seven appointments in December 1947.

But during the eight years that Meyner's successor, Democrat Richard Hughes, was Governor, he made no Supreme Court appointments.  But Hughes would himself serve as Chief Justice for nearly six years after leaving office.

Not including sitting Judges being renominated, Republicans William Cahill and Christine Todd Whitman nominated five Justices; Brendan Byrne picked four; James E. McGreevey and Jon Corzine named three; and Thomas Kean selected just two new Justices during his eight years as Governor.  James Florio made no Supreme Court appointments during his four years as Governor.

When 68-year-old Arthur Vanderbilt, the Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court and founding father of the state's judicial system, died of a heart attack on June 16, 1957, it put Governor Robert Meyner in the position of filling three Supreme Court seats while in the midst of his own re-election bid.

Meyner's decision for Vanderbilt's successor was easy: he picked Joseph Weintraub, his 48-year-old former Chief Counsel.  Weintraub had been an Associate Justice since November 1956 when Meyner picked him to replace William Brennan, who had been named to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Dwight Eisenhower.

The Governor then needed an Associate Justice to replace Weintraub, and another to replace Dayton Oliphant, who would reach the mandatory retirement age of seventy in October 1957.  Oliphant, whose uncle, William Dayton, had been a U.S. Senator and the 1856 Republican nominee for Vice President, was a former Assembly Majority Leader and Mercer County Prosecutor; he spent thirty years on the bench.

In order to maintain a partisan balance of the top court, Meyner chose to appoint a Democrat to replace Weintraub and a Republican for Oliphant's seat.  Two of Meyner's top choices were Superior Court Judges from Essex County, John Francis, a Democrat and Alfred Clapp, a Republican.  Francis had won 46% as the Democratic candidate for Congress in 1944, and Clapp, 53, was a two-term Republican State Senator who resigned to become a Judge after losing the 1953 GOP gubernatorial primary.

The problem for Meyner was that there were already three Supreme Court Justice from Essex - Weintraub, William Wachenfeld, and Nathan Jacobs - and he didn't want to go to more than four, especially five months away from Election Day.

Senators seek a thorough and thoughtful review of the qualifications of a justice who could serve on the state's highest court for another 14 years.

If the next Governor is Jon Corzine, Christopher Christie or Richard Codey, the embattled Roberto Rivera-Soto could be a one-term Associate Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court and Monmouth County Prosecutor Luis Valentin might be his replacement. There is nothing to indicate that Steve Lonegan would pick Valentin if he’s elected, but it’s a near certainty that Lonegan wouldn’t reappoint Rivera-Soto – or any other non-tenured member of the current top court.

Click on this image to enlargeOnly in New Jersey can a lawyer tout his marriage to a Supreme Court Justice on his law firm's website as way of drumming up legal work. Jonathan Weiner, a partner at Fox Rothschild, a large and politically active law firm with a government affairs and gaming law practice, notes in his official biography that his wife, Virginia Long, is an Associate Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court with lifetime tenure. Weiner is also the general counsel of the Health Care Association of New Jersey, and rather amazingly, notes that “he was recently re-appointed by the Supreme Court of New Jersey to a second two-year term on its Civil Practice Committee.”

New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety Photos
Stuart Rabner will be the next Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court and Anne Milgram will replace him as Attorney General, according to several sources close to Gov. Jon Corzine.

Insiders predict an easy confirmation for both, especially Rabner, who has won high praise from leaders of both parties.

Chief Justice James Zazzali must step down in October, when he reaches the mandatory age of seventy. If nominated and confirmed, the 47-year-old Rabner would become the youngest Chief Justice since Pierre Garven in 1973. He could potentially run the state judiciary system for the next 23 years.

Robert Schwaneberg is one of the Star-Ledger's most respected reporters -- a true professional with the highest possible ethics. But his coverage of Governor Jon Corzine's recovery from a serious automobile accident two weeks ago offers a potential appearance of a conflict: last year, Corzine appointed Schwaneberg's wife, Helen Hoens, to the New Jersey Supreme Court.

If Corzine's ability to serve is ever challenged by the Legislature, it would be up to the Supreme Court to decide whether he could continue as Governor. The Star-Ledger has an exceptionally able team in Trenton, and it could be helpful to the people's long-term interests -- which could include a constitutional crisis -- if they helped avoid a situation where one of the seven Justices is forced to recuse herself.