Steve Adubato

Newark Mayor Cory BookerAfter M. Teresa Ruiz won her general election senate race, Steve Adubato finally let Cory Booker know what he thought about the mayor’s primary election efforts on behalf of Bilal Beasley in the 28th district.

Adubato, lifelong political warrior and Newark native, frankly wasn’t impressed.

Beasley, with Booker’s so called muscle behind him, had failed to beat the always independent and hard-to-gauge Sen. Ronald Rice, perennial west ward cowboy and activist, and a mutual bane to Adubato and Booker.

Adubato’s telephone tongue-lashing awakened another old frustration for the mayor.

They hear it on the streets of Newark.

But on the first and third Wednesdays of each month, members of the City Council can be sure to receive a barrage of complaints from residents who are worried not only about the murders and gangs but about the cost of living and the threat of corporate interests upending local concerns.

"You're supposed to be standing up and fighting for us," the poet Amiri Baraka cried during the public comment forum of a meeting. "Until I see you fighting, then you're not a good council."

"You're giving tax abatements to developers," cried resident Frank Hertz. "You'd better justify this tax abatement."

And always there is the complaint about the scarcity of jobs.

Gov. Jon Corzine is optimistic about New Jersey's futureSeated at a back table in an Ironbound restaurant on Wednesday afternoon, Gov. Jon Corzine listened as he heard the leadership of his party described as a three-headed hydra; an image used by Republicans on the campaign trail to characterize Senate President Richard Codey, Speaker Joseph Roberts - and Corzine.

The governor thinks it's ridiculous.

"We have a Constitution that separates power for a reason," said Corzine: to prevent one branch of government from usurping the authority that individuals have in each branch.

The appointment of former Attorney General Stuart Rabner to the office of state Supreme Court Justice is one of his proudest accomplishments as governor, given the quality and preparedness of the man, Corzine said. However, the judiciary is not the troubled branch of government by the reckoning of Corzine's fiercest critics - maybe philosophically with decisions such as Abbott - but at least not immediately.

Luis QuintanaWhen Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo found out this morning that the name "Luis Quintana"' was on a Senate Judiciary to-do list, he angrily reached for a telephone and called the governor's office.

DiVincenzo wanted to know what Quintana was doing on the list months after he thought he made it clear to Gov. Jon Corzine that the at-large Newark councilman should not be considered for an appointment to the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission.

Steve Adubato, executive director of the North Ward Cultural Center and one of New Jersey's most powerful political insiders

When his political foes deride Steve Adubato as a Renaissance overlord who controls his fiefdom through a bruising combination of ego and Machiavellian panache, Adubato offers as a counter-argument the work of the North Ward Center.

They may argue with the man, but no one argues with his life’s work - at least not here in Newark where the effects of poverty are up close and all too personal.

Tuesday was special for Adubato. The 74-year old political boss and executive director of the center welcomed child advocate Marian Wright Edelman to Newark to officially open the Casa Israel Child Development Center, and Roseville Child Development Center. These buildings are two of four schools that compose the North Ward Child Development Center, which serves 600 students and is the single largest Abbott School-funded provider of pre-school education in the state.

Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzoRunning in a crouch familiar to old-timey Newark sports fans, Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo, Jr., heads out onto the grass - and this time approaches a half circle of women who have stationed themselves outside his press conference at the Turtle Back Zoo. They’re protesting his decision to allow a deer hunt early next year in the South Mountain Reservation.

"I don’t like guns, but I have no choice," he tells them. "We’ve tried trap and transfer. We’ve tried birth control. Nothing works. We have to reduce the deer population."

In honor of the late John Cryan, a former Essex County Sheriff and Assemblyman who passed away in 2005, the public library in Castelrea, Ireland, the town where Cryan was born, will dedicate the new John F. Cryan Wing. Cryan's son, Assemblyman Joseph Cryan, will attend the dedication, along with Assemblyman Thomas Giblin (who is hosting the event), Democratic strategist Tom Barrett, North Ward Cultural Center Executive Director Steve Adubato, Sr., and other members of the Cryan family. The dedication will be on August 4.

By STEVE ADUBATO

New Jersey's recent government shutdown offers a variety of lessons for all involved. Full disclosure, two decades ago, as a 26-year old freshman legislator, I participated in this annual wacky budget dance, and while it was nothing like we've just experienced, the budget process often comes down to an irresponsible game of Russian Roulette played with taxpayer money.

Every year, the governor and the legislature attempt to balance the State budget by midnight of June 30th. The State Constitution says that if you can't, or won't, the government must shut down because the state can't spend money on anything other than "essential services."

Until this past week, every time the government shutdown was threatened, a deal was struck at the last minute to keep the government running. How? Easy, by legislators making deals to get the Governor to support their pet projects or getting a good friend or political associate appointed to some state agency or commission.

But beyond the politics, patronage and horse-trading, the worst part about past efforts to "balance the budget" was the massive borrowing (don't worry, we'll be out of office when the bill comes due) or one-shot fiscal gimmicks that can bring in big revenue but will not around the next year. We're talking about selling state roads or dipping into some supposedly untouchable pot of money (like the unemployment fund) just to get your hands on some quick cash. There was gross underestimating of state government expenses and an irresponsible overestimating of state revenues, otherwise known as "cooking the books".

This was how New Jersey's state budget was "balanced" up until this year, by using funny money and fiscal slight of hand. All of this was done by our government leaders, whose primary goal was to make it look like they were being responsible but never really making really tough choices. For as long as anyone could remember, the budget process in New Jersey has been a farce, a sham.

Enter Jon Corzine. Sure, he was a U.S. Senator for six years, but New Jerseyans had no idea who he really was until these past few weeks. Corzine was working from a different script. He actually was attempting to match revenues to expenditures. He was trying to balance this budget and do it in a way that you had to respect. Corzine was willing to compromise, but not to the point of giving away the store, and going back to the old ways of doing business.

This battle was never about a penny increase in the sales tax; it was about what the penny represented. Corzine realized that the only way to begin to attack this massive, $4.5 billion deficit would be to create a new source of recurring revenue. That penny increase in the sales tax represented $1.2 billion in new money.

Sure, if you asked people if they wanted to see a penny increase in the sales tax, the answer would be "no." But ask them if they would be willing to pay an extra penny on the dollar if it helped close a massive budget deficit and put the state back on a sound fiscal track, the answer might be different. Oh yeah, and by the way, that extra penny will help keep the government functioning so you can buy lottery tickets, go to the casinos, and get your license renewed at motor vehicles.

Corzine stuck to his guns, even when the pressure was on him to fold, with growing public frustration. He understood what was at stake, while many Assembly Democrats pandered their way through this budget process, deathly afraid that voting for the penny sales tax hike would jeopardize their political future. Sometimes being a leader in government actually means having to lead, which often means doing what may appear to be unpopular, but you know to be right. It means having courage of your convictions. Corzine had it in spades while many Assembly Democrats were cowards. In the end, Corzine won, and the Assembly Democrats folded. Republican laughed on the sidelines, while many citizens suffered.

More work must be done to get our fiscal picture truly back on track. A compromise that takes half of the sales tax revenue and uses it for property tax relief will be a real challenge. It means another $600 million in cuts must be found. It also means there will be more pain and sacrifice, more tough choices.

Yet the good news out of Trenton this past week is that there is a new sheriff in town, and his name is Governor Jon Corzine. He is far from perfect, and will make many mistakes along the way, but in this latest budget battle, John Corzine stood tall and was a genuine leader, who acted like a grownup, making grownup decisions. That's something the New Jersey State House hasn't seen in awhile.

Emmy Award winner Steve Adubato, Jr. will kick off the Democracy Works 2006: A New Governor, A Challenging Agenda series, featuring Governor Jon Corzine. Corzine discusses the many challenges and opportunities facing his administration and how New Jersey citizens are affected. The governor also speaks directly to citizens about a variety of critical issue including property tax, the state budget and much more. Adubato's show, which premieres on May 20, will also feature comprehensive coverage of the upcoming senate campaign.

By Steve Adubato, Ph.D.

Being in the legislature is pretty easy compared to being the governor. I know, because 20 years ago, I served in the legislature. Don't get me wrong, it can be tough getting elected, particularly if you are in a marginal swing district, which can go either way from election to election. But being in the legislature is another story.

Sure, committee meetings can be deadly boring, and listening to your colleagues drone on forever on the floor can be painful, but all in all, you don't have to be that responsible for what you say and do. You can be against just about anything without having to come up with an alternative. You can criticize without being held accountable. If you are in the minority party, it is even easier. All you have to say is; "The other guys are rotten. But if WE were in power... "

Governor Jon Corzine knows this painful fact of political life all too well. For nearly six years he served in the US Senate, the most prestigious legislative body in the land. By all accounts, Corzine was a good Senator, but like I said, being in the legislature isn't that hard, just ask Corzine now that he's governor.

Virtually every time he has proposed a potential solution, remedy or policy change, numerous members of the legislature pop up from the peanut gallery blasting his proposal. Just look at what happened with the "pump-your-own-gas" proposal that Corzine floated a couple of weeks ago. I didn't like it either, particularly because I am not exactly confident that I could have pulled off actually pumping the gas into my own car (plus, who wants to get that stinky gas smell on their hands, not to mention not wanting to get out of the car when it is cold or raining.)

But, all Corzine was doing was trying to find some ways to reduce gas prices in the state. Was it the best idea? Probably not. However, if you are in the legislature, you don't have to come up with one. All you need to do is try to get headlines by saying that Corzine's idea was all wet and leave it at that. No recommendations about cutting gas prices. Nothing. Just throw a bomb and see where it hits.

Now, look what's is happening to the sales tax increase that Corzine has put out there as a possible way of closing a $4 billion budget gap. A sales tax increase from six to seven percent would bring in $1.4 billion. That's big money for just a penny increase in a sales tax.

But look what happens in the legislature. Both parties, including the Democrats who were supposed to be Corzine's friends, rail against the idea acting as if they are coming to the rescue of the little guy. They say, "no way to the sales tax," but, of course, don't even attempt to say where they would make up the $1.4 billion. Just "no" to the sales tax, because they are against all sales tax increases. Like I said, it is a pretty easy job.

But Corzine, as chief executive, has to figure out how to get this budget balanced by the end of June. So what does he do? He proposes another really unpopular idea of drastically cutting state aid to higher education. Nobody wants to do that. Nobody wants to see tuition increased and make it harder for working class kids to pursue college. But something has got to give.

Corzine told me in a recent interview for a series called "Democracy Works: A New Governor, A Challenging Agenda," that he personally didn't want to cut higher ed to this degree, but he was trying to get college presidents to "scrub their budgets" and find inefficiencies and waste. Corzine is trying to send a message about how serious the situation is, but what do our legislative "leaders" do? They pander to college students and their parents saying they will never let the governor cut higher ed like this. But again there are no alternatives and no suggestions for how to make up the money that they promise won't get cut. There are no tax increases and no specific calls for reductions in state government or state services.

But the final blow came this week on the so-called hospital bed tax, which Corzine proposed. The hospitals joined together to blast the proposal and legislative leaders this week made it clear that they were against the bed tax which would raise over $200 million. But predictably no alternative, no recommendations, nothing, just, "We're against the governor's proposal because we are for the hospitals."

You've got to laugh sometimes at the legislators. They are for the students. They are for the motorists. They are for the tax payers. They are for the little guy. They are for everything that makes them look and sound good, but when it comes to the hard work of governing, it's Jon Corzine's problem as the state's chief executive. About now, Corzine must be wondering if his old cushy job in the US Senate wouldn't be a lot better for his mental health. Let me know what you think. Write to me at sadubato@aol.com

Steve Adubato is the anchor of a series called "Democracy Works: A New Governor, A Challenging Agenda," that can be seen on Thirteen/WNET New York, as well as on NJN-Public Television, CN8-The Comcast Network and Cablevision. This series premieres on May 20, 2006, with interviews with Governor Jon Corzine. Log on to www.caucusnj.org for a more detailed schedule of the "Democracy Works" series.