Ralph Caputo

From left: U.S. Rep. Donald Payne, Sen Ronald Rice, Andre Reames, Bill Payne, Freeholder/Councilman Donald Payne, Jr., and Craig Stanley

NEWARK – Democratic Party stronghold Essex was supposed to be quiet this season as Newark and the environs reflect on a North Ward-City Hall lovefest and prepare for the reelection campaign of Gov Jon Corzine. 

Now the Payne family appears mobilized on the primary horizon here in the 28th District and potentially in the 29th, though insiders say it's unlikely they will be able to escalate a fullscale battle, even if they choose to fight.

After getting bumped out of office by an Adubato-Booker alliance in 2007, family scion former Assemblyman Craig Stanley (D-Irvington) is trying to scratch his way back into the legislature and finding little organizational support in the process with two weeks to go before the April 6th state filing deadline.

Essex sources on all sides say there’s little or no chance Chairman Phil Thigpen will award the District 28 party line to Stanley over incumbents Assemblyman Ralph Caputo (D-Belleville) and Assemblywoman Cleopatra Tucker (D-Newark) - not in a gubernatorial election year when an unpopular Corzine faces more than a warm body challenge from the Republican Party, and party chieftains are intent on trying to keep his troops in line. 

Thigpen himself is cryptic on the Stanley issue.

CAPUTO / VAINIERI HUTTLE BILL TO INCREASE VOTING BY YOUNG PEOPLE ADVANCES

Measure Would Ensure Graduating High Schoolers Receive Voter Registration Forms

(TRENTON) – Legislation Assembly members Ralph R. Caputo and Valerie Vainieri Huttle sponsored that would require all New Jersey schools to provide voter registration materials to graduating high school students continues to advance.

Caputo, a former educator, said the law would increase the likelihood that the voter registration materials are received by young people.

“With so many key issues facing society, whether it be global conflicts, environmental worries, economic fears or health care concerns, it’s more important than ever that young people have their voices heard,” said Caputo (D-Essex). “There’s no better time to emphasize the role of being a citizen and the importance of voting than when a teen-ager is entering the world after receiving their high school diploma.”

Democrat Craig Stanley is expected to announce next month that he will seek his old State Assembly seat.  Stanley spent twelve years in the Assembly before narrowly losing the 2007 Democratic primary to Ralph Caputo and Cleopatra Tucker, a casualty of a political war that sought to oust State Sen. Ronald Rice.  Rice won his primary despite strong opposition from Newark Mayor Cory Booker; Stanley ran on the Rice line.

Regardless of the outcome of the game of political musical chairs in the 28th legislative district, where two incumbents and a former Assemblyman are posturing for two spots on the Democratic line, look for the mostly white, blue collar towns of Belleville and Bloomfield to be split away from Newark and Irvington when a new map is drawn after next year's census.

The 28th was supposed to be one of the voting rights districts that protected minority representation in the Legislature when it was drawn in 2001.  The incumbents at the time were three African Americans: State Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Newark) and Assemblymen Donald Tucker (D-Newark) and Craig Stanley (D-Irvington). 

If Caputo holds his seat this year, it makes a defense of the current district under the Voting Rights Act more difficult.

Belleville, which was in the old 36th district, and Bloomfield, part of the old 34th district, were mostly represented by Republican legislators before the towns were moved in to the new 28th.  Rice beat GOP Assemblywoman Marion Crecco (R-Bloomfield) by a 69%-30% margin in 2001.

But Belleville and Bloomfield, which was estimated to have a combined population of 79,816 last year, have proven to be a greater force in Essex County politics than the redistricting commission imagined.  In 2007, Essex Democrats backed Ralph Caputo, a white Freeholder who served as a Republican Assemblyman from 1968 to 1972, to run for the Assembly.  Caputo and Cleopatra Tucker, whose late husband held the seat until his death in 2005, unseated two incumbents, Stanley and Oadline Truitt (D-Newark). 

Top Row, left to right: Assemblyman Richard Fiore, reputed mob boss Jerry Catena, Assemblyman John Selecky and State Sen. Sido Ridolfi; Bottom Row, left to right: Assemblyman David Friedland, U.S. Attorney Frederick Lacey, State Sen. Hap Farley, and whistleblower Claire Curran Johnson

One of the classic stories of the New Jersey Legislature in 1968 were allegations that a Newark Assemblyman wanted to cancel a hearing on organized crime under pressure from a "lobbyist" representing Geraldo (Jerry) Catena, one of the state's most powerful mob bosses.

Senate Law and Public Safety Committee Chairman Joseph Woodcock held a news conference in December 1968 to say that his aide was told by Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee Chairman Richard Fiore that he was being pressured by Catena to stop legislative proposals to create the State Commission of Investigation, and to legalize wiretapping, and to permit certain witnesses to receive immunity from prosecution.

Claire Curran Johnson, a former New York Mirror crime reporter who worked for Woodcock, told investigators for the state Attorney General's office that Fiore, a 36-year-old substitute teacher and Recreation Director for the Newark Board of Education, claimed he wanted to head the Assembly panel "to stop these kind of things." "There is a lot of pressure. You just don't know how much pressure. Jerry is unhappy about it," Curran quoted Fiore as telling her.

Assemblyman Ralph Caputo (D-Belleville), left, and Assemblywoman Cleopatra Tucker (D-Newark), with Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts, could be playing a game of political musical chairs for one 28th district Assembly seat.

Ralph Caputo may be passing Cleopatra Tucker as the most vulnerable member of the State Assembly in District 28 as the Payne political machine moves to return Craig Stanley to the Legislature.  Sources say the Payne organization, led by U.S. Rep. Donald Payne, has made Stanley, the nephew of former Assemblyman William Payne, a priority as the April filing deadline approaches.  Stanley spent twelve years in the Assembly before narrowly losing the 2007 Democratic primary to Caputo and Tucker.  He was a casualty of a political war that sought to oust State Sen. Ronald Rice, who won his primary despite strong opposition from Newark Mayor Cory Booker.  Stanley ran on the Rice line.

William Payne, 76, has mulled his own return to the Assembly seat he gave up in 2007 to mount an Independent bid for State Senator in the 29th district.  Sources say he is willing to forego a primary challenge to incumbents Albert Coutinho and Grace Spencer if Essex Democrats will agree to put Stanley on the organization line in the neighboring district.

For a while it looked like Tucker was the most likely casualty, but now the talk is that it may be Caputo, a 68-year-old white Belleville Democrat who represents a Newark-Irvington district drawn to elect African American legislators.  Caputo is also an Essex County Freeholder (he represents a blue collar district) and served in the Assembly as a Republican from 1968 to 1972.

Mayor Cory Booker, center, with Oscar winner Forest Whitaker, left, and jazz pianist Eric Lewis

NEWARK – On the city’s 21st anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, 72 hours before Obama’s presidential inaugural, Newarkers at Grace Episcopal Church rejoiced in a ceremony of blended Obama-MILK symbolism that apparently left no room or reason for last minute retaliatory elbows thrown at the outgoing Bush administration. 

In short, the most joyfully considered and relevant transition of power here was from King to Obama. 

“I’m a child of the 1960s. There are still a few of us around, right, Mildred?” said Gov. Jon Corzine, finding Council President Mildred Crump’s smiling face in the crowd. “King defined our aspirations, and what we could seek to find. When he was killed in Memphis he was talking about a living wage. We have a long way to go, but at this moment, when Barack Obama is sworn in, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream will become a reality. 

“God bless the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the presidency of Barack Obama,” added Corzine, and moments later, Crump cried, “That’s my governor,” as people in the crowd lurched to their feet.

State Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Essex), left, and Assemblyman Ralph Caputo (D-Belleville).

TRENTON - The 28th District primary battle to take down state Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Essex) in 2007 proved bloody enough for Rice - the survivor - to comment in its aftermath, “Every war has casualties.” 

Running off the line, Rice fended off his own challenger, but lost his running mates, Craig Stanley and Oadline Truitt, who were defeated by Ralph Caputo and Cleopatra Tucker. 

Now months before the 2009 Democratic primary in Essex County with sources saying Stanley wants back in, Rice wants it known he supports the reelection of Assemblyman Caputo (D-Belleville) and Assemblyman Tucker (D-Newark), and won’t back challengers to the two people who in the last election helped comprise a ticket that challenged him. 

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.