Robert Martin

One of the perks of being the new GOP State Chairman: Assemblyman Jay Webber (R-Morris Plains) gets to appoint the five Republican members of the Legislative Redistricting Commission, which will redraw districts for the 2011 elections.  That could help Webber move up to the State Senate.

The conventional wisdom is that State Sen. Anthony Bucco (R-Boonton) will retire in 2011 and that three Republicans - Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll (R-Morris Twp.), Morris County Freeholder John Murphy, and soon-to-be Assemblyman Anthony Bucco, Jr., the son of the Senator - will compete for his seat.

But with just some minor tinkering of the two Morris County-based legislative districts, Webber could find himself without substantial opposition for the Senate seat.  Morris Plains and Parsippany could move from the 26th to the 25th, and Morris Township, Morristown, Boonton Township and Boonton Borough could shift from the 25th to the 26th - a nearly even exchange of population, based on 2006 census estimates.

That would mean a 26th district ticket of State Sen. Joseph Pennacchio (R-Montville), Carroll and Bucco, Jr.  In the 25th, it would be Webber for Senate, running with Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce (R-Parsippany) and an open seat. Murphy, who sought the 2005 Republican gubernatorial nomination, lives in Morris Township.  Shifting his hometown to District 26 could easily block his legislative ambitions.

Thanks to Mr. Potato Head, former State Sen. Robert Martin (R-Morris Plains), a slip-and-fall jury trial will need to be done over.  Martin, who served as foreman of the jury, wrote an article for the New Jersey Law Journal boasting that his fellow jurors relied on him to explain "abstract legal concepts and procedural issues" related to the case. A state appeals court ruled yesterday that Martin had influenced the 2006 verdict, where a woman was awarded $876,000 after a fall at a Shop-Rite in Wharton.

Martin did not seek re-election to the Senate in 2007, and has since won lucrative appointments to two panels: Gov. Jon Corzine named him to the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Board of Directors, and Senate President Richard Codey gave him a seat on the State Commission of Investigation.  Martin is also a Law Professor at Seton Hall University.

New Jersey has a medium-sized controversy brewing: the naming of Route 23 after Robert Roe, who represented New Jersey in Congress from 1969 to 1993 and served as Chairman of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee. The Legislature almost unanimously (only Ellen Karcher voted no) approved the bill last year, and Governor Jon Corzine signed it – but now people are paying attention because of a complaint levied by a Morris County man whose wife and daughter were seriously injured in a 1993 car accident involving Roe, who was driving drunk at the time (a breathalyzer showed him at .17, well beyond the .10 legal limit). Roe entered into a plea bargain with prosecutors to avoid serious charges, and paid the family a settlement of more than $500,000.

Which candidates disappointed you the most in 2007? Who are New Jersey’s Rising Stars? PolitickerNJ.com’s annual year-end wrap up will be posted on December 27: Winners & Losers of the Year, Best & Worst Campaigns, Best Operatives, and much more.

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Back in the old days, when state legislators made just a few thousand dollars a year, with no staff budgets or district offices – they did get telephone credit cards and passes to ride trains for free – the New Jersey State Police was regularly used to transport legislators. Sometimes the Senate President or Assembly Speaker would dispatch a State Trooper to compel the return of a legislator who had snuck away while the Senate or Assembly was “under call” – or more typically, to help a legislator get home from Lorenzo’s after a long night.

Not a great cycle for Message & Media hotshots Steve DeMicco and Brad Lawrence: their two State Senate candidates got beaten – Ellen Karcher received 46% in District 12, and Seema Singh took just 37% in the fourteenth.

And now DeMicco and Lawrence have a bigger problem: their mail in the 37th district for Democrats Loretta Weinberg, Gordon Johnson and Valerie Huttle – the reformer pieces – seems to have really annoyed Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero. Does this but DeMicco and Lawrence in a war with the powerful Ferriero?

Is Shirley Turner really in trouble, or did someone just spin Joe Donohue? In a review of competitive State Senate races for the upcoming mid-term elections, The Star-Ledger listed the 15th district as one of the in-play seats that the GOP needs to win to take control of the Senate.

Republican newcomer Robert Martin is self-financing his race against Turner, and Senate Minority Leader Leonard Lance has become infatuated with his candidacy. Martin has done some early mail and cable TV ads, and GOP insiders say he plans to spend a few hundred thousand dollars.

Already through the assembly, a bill banning dual office holding passed in the state senate on Thursday, 33-2.

Upset that the bill grandfathers legislators who currently hold two or more offices, the GOP was circling in the senate chamber, taking bites at the bill when an infuriated Sen. Ron Rice let them have it.

The public will be allowed to hear judge question jurors about State Senator Robert Martin, Healy’s trial for disorderly conduct set for next month, Harrison Township Committee candidate shares lawyer with town in suit against zoning board, Tom Wilson named in lawsuit, Atlantic County Democrats lead Republicans in fundraising.

ASSEMBLY AND SENATE HONORS PEQUANNOCK
LITTLE LEAGUE GIRLS SOFTBALL TEAM
RESOLUTION TO BE PRESENTED FOR PLACING SECOND AT
LITTLE LEAGUE SOFTBALL WORLD SERIES

The Pequannock Little League Girls Softball Team will receive praise today by the New Jersey Legislature for a brilliant performance during their 2006 national title campaign. District 26 legislators Assembly Republican Leader Alex DeCroce, Assemblyman Joe Pennacchio and Senator Robert Martin will present the team with a resolution in tribute to their performance at the General Assembly voting session today.