Sheila Oliver

OLIVER / LAMPITT / GREENWALD / LOVE / CRUZ-PEREZ BILL REQUIRING STATE TO REPORT ASSAULTS & DEATHS AT STATE PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITALS SIGNED INTO LAW

(TRENTON) – Legislation sponsored by Assembly members Sheila Y. Oliver, Pamela R. Lampitt, Louis D. Greenwald, Sandi Love and Nilsa Cruz-Perez to require the state to publicly report assaults and deaths at state psychiatric hospitals has been signed into law by Gov. Jon S. Corzine.

Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver (D-East Orange) told The Star-Ledger today that Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Trenton) has dropped her campaign to become assembly speaker.

Oliver, who is expected to ascend to the speakership as part of a deal between north and south Jersey Democrats to install state Sen. Stephen Sweeney (D-West Deptford) as senate president, claimed the votes for the position in September.  Watson Coleman, however, continued to campaign for it until this week.

If she is voted to lead the lower legislative house, Oliver will replace retiring Speaker Joseph Roberts (D-Camden).    

Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean (R-Westfield), left, and Sen. Robert Gordon (D-Paramus).

ATLANTIC CITY - The legislative leadership transmogrifications are evident at the Atlantic City Convention Center, even if the good government intentions are nowhere visible outside whatever sessions convene behind closed doors.

A lot of people are talking about Senate President Richard Codey's party last night.

"An Irish wake," is how Sierra Club Executive Director Jeff Tittel describes the event.

More than a few people note that Codey appeared unflappable - even merry.

"Personable is not personal," explains another insider. "You have to understand the Irish. Whatever he's feeling inside, however personal he's taking this, will not take away from his ability to be personable."

Assembly Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing), left, with Gov. Jon Corzine on the eve of Election Day in Lawrenceville.

Up against a politically and geographically connected frontrunner, Assembly Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing) this week continues to call assembly people in the Democratic caucus in an effort to secure backing for the speakership, according to party sources.

A veteran legislator and former Democratic state party chair, Watson Coleman naturally headed a short-list of successors to retiring Speaker Joe Roberts (D-Camden).

But the Mercer County product's difficulty in a state controlled by powerful political fiefdoms is she hails from a county that is the Democratic Party equivalent of Somerset.

If the measure included time in the trenches and advocacy of progressive party causes, she looked tracked to become the Assembly's first African American woman speaker.

Ready to formally announce at noon in Veteran's Park on Dec. 11, Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo says he has one campaign left in him: a third go at county executive next year before retiring to the private sector.

"My option is to run one more time here and then look at other options outside government, it's not to run for governor in 2013," said DiVincenzo. "I want people to look at my legacy in Essex County and remember that the two guys prior to me both did jail time. What I've done here is I've rebuilt parks and infrastructure.

"Nobody should be talking about that right now," added DiVincenzo, when asked about the 2013 gubernatorial election and prospective Democratic challengers to GOP Gov.-elect Chris Christie. 

"Chris will be re-elected if he does a good job," said the county executive, a Democrat and longtime friend of Christie's. "There is no question, if anybody can straighten out the state, it's him. He's a very tough guy and the people he brings around him will be critical. Look at everything he's done so far. As someone who runs a governent here, I'm very impressed. I talk to him regularly. He's handling transition very well. He's trying to bring in everyone and reaching out to both sides, Democrat and Republican. I pray that he's successful because we can't go on for another four years like this. People out here are hurting."

Political problems for the state's largest teacher's union continue to mount.  After going all out for Gov. Jon Corzine in the recent election, the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) knows they have a potential problem with voucher-backing charter school enthusiast Gov.-elect Christopher Christie.  And in the Senate, it looks like Teresa Ruiz (D-Newark), a protégé of Newark political leader Stephen Adubato, might replace Shirley Turner (D-Lawrence) as chairman of the Education Committee.  A fair assumption is that Ruiz will share Adubato's fervent support for charter schools. 

Turner could wind up a casualty of the contest for Senate President; she backed incumbent Richard Codey (D-Roseland), while Ruiz supported the likely winner, Stephen Sweeney (D-West Deptford).

Christie's problem with the NJEA might be more than just politics - he appears to have different views on how to fix New Jersey's public school.  And he might have the upper hand, especially with a potential political ally running the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Sheila Oliver (D-East Orange), who is expected to become the next Assembly Speaker, has not yet indicated who she will pick as the new Assembly Education Committee Chairman.  The incumbent, Joseph Cryan (D-Union), a strong NJEA supporter, is expected to vacate the post to become Majority Leader.  Oliver also has strong ties to Adubato - she is the Assistant Essex County Administrator (and Ruiz is the Deputy Chief of Staff to the Essex County Executive) - but statehouse observers say that Oliver is likely to pick a new chairman who would be supportive of the teachers union, a key player in the state's Democratic base vote.

Reportedly not under consideration to head the Education Committee is Joan Voss (D-Fort Lee), who spent forty years as a public school teacher and is now vice chair of the panel.  Voss, Democratic leaders say, lacks intellectual heft to take on the post.  Instead, Democrats could turn to Patrick Diegnan (D-South Plainfield), a Cryan/Oliver ally and the current chairman of the Assembly Higher Education Committee.  If Diegnan turns it down - the Middlesex County Democrat might want to stay where he is, considering the importance of Rutgers University to his district, the leadership might go with the highly-regarded Mila Jasey (D-South Orange), a former school board member but an ally of outgoing Senate President Richard Codey (D-Roseland), or Paul Moriarty (D-Washington Twp.), a member of South Jersey Democratic leader George Norcross' political organization.

East Orange Mayor Robert Bowser (over Gov. Jon Corzine's left shoulder), and Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo, far right.

East Orange Mayor Robert Boswer today said he believes Chris Christie's victory over Jon Corzine in the governor's race earlier this month should spark Democratic Party senators to reconsider their abandonment of support for Senate President Richard Codey (D-Roseland).

"I don't know what to expect at all from Chris Christie, and probably won't get any kind of clues until the transition team changes the guard, but I do believe Christie's win changes the dynamic for the senate presidency and the same thing for the speaker of the assembly," said Bowser.

At last public count, Senate Majority Leader Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford) has 15 caucus votes to Codey's eight heading into their Nov. 23rd Statehouse confab and presumptive legislative leadership change.

Assembly Anthony Chiappone (D-Bayonne) wants his committee assignments back.

Chiappone, charged with allegedly cashing legislative aides' checks for personal and campaign use, was stripped of his membership in three committees by Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts (D-Camden) immediately after he was indicted by the state Attorney General's Office.

But Chiappone insists he's innocent, and news of his indictment did not doom his reelection in a district where Democrats outnumber Republicans eight-to-one.  Chiappone and running mate Charles Mainor - a police detective who was narrowly the top vote getter - got nearly three times the vote totals of their two Republican opponents. 

"Naturally I'd like to have [the committee assignments] back," said Chiappone.  "What the people basically said is what I've been asking them: give me the benefit of the doubt, give me the presumption of innocence."

Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver (D-East Orange)

Her early critics quietly grumble that she's a political neophyte - the preferred Essex County term of art for someone who rises too quickly in politics.

But Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver (D-East Orange), a veteran of East Orange local politics, said she is more than ready to assume the lead role in the lower house come Nov. 23rd, when both the Assemby and the senate are scheduled to vote on leadership. 

Her rapid ascent coincides with the fast dimming political career of lame duck Gov. Jon Corzine.

"He genuinely wanted to effectuate glaring social issues of interest to a broad cross section to advocay groups, but did not understand the complexity of navigating the shark and barracuda filled waters of New Jersey politics," said Oliver when asked to reflect on Corzine's legacy.  

Poised with a sufficient number of caucus votes to become the Assembly's first African American woman speaker as succesor to Speaker Joe Roberts (D-Camden), Oliver said she received a phone call yesterday from Gov.-elect Chris Christie but was unavailable. She said she intends to return his call today.

One recurring theme in newspaper endorsements from across the state: some candidates don't properly prepare for editorial board meetings.  In several cases during this cycle, newspapers said they were reluctant to endorse incumbents, but had no choice after challengers were either ill-equipped to answer public policy questions, or simply did not respond to invitations to participate.  Newspapers wouldn't have necessarily endorsed the challengers if they met them, or if they were not competent, but incumbents are favored when the challengers don't even show up.

The Record and the Herald News still endorsed Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver (D-East Orange), likely to be the next Assembly Speaker, even though they were "skeptical, given the heavy influence of New Jersey's political machinery," of her claim to be an independent thinker - and despite her possession of another full-time government job. Oliver's GOP opponents did not meet with the newspaper's editorial board: "We have no sense of whether they can back up their promises."

In the neighboring 35th district, the Record and the Herald News lamented over their choices when they endorsed incumbents Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon) and Elease Evans (D-Paterson).

"It is possible the Republicans would make excellent members of the Assembly, yet they did not meet with The Herald News' editorial board. Their positions on issues important to the state and to the district are less clear to us.  While we are not comfortable, given these difficult times, with two incumbents who hold close ties to the state's powerful unions, we cannot endorse challengers whose positions and allegiances are largely unknown," the editorials said.  "It would be better if voters in the 35th had a greater choice for Assembly. As it is, the choices are few, and from here, the known is a step above the unknown."

The Courier Post complained that two of the three Republican candidates for Camden County Freeholder wouldn't take their calls, and the third candidate was not even remotely ready for public office.  Brian Kluchnick, a GOP Assembly candidate in the fifth district, also didn't return phone calls.  The Courier-Post has surely shown a willingness to endorse Republican candidates.