Steve Oroho

Comes After Pension Commission Removes Key Bill From Today's Agenda

The Pension and Health Benefits Review Commission removed from its agenda today legislation (S-7) that would irresponsibly cause local employers to skip more than $1 billion in pension payments. The legislation had been on the agenda, but was pulled in recent days. The Commission is statutorily charged with reviewing legislation that changes benefits by even one dollar, but they are not permitted under state law to review or discuss legislation that would further short underfunded public pension funds.

Senate Republican Leader Tom Kean and Republican members of the Senate Budget Committee Tony Bucco, Kevin O'Toole, Steve Oroho, and Phil Haines have filed a lawsuit against Governor Jon Corzine today at 9:15am. The Governor is violating the State's open public records law by refusing to provide documents that show what budgeted funds Corzine has frozen to address an at least $1.2 billion revenue drop and to pay for more than $100 million in spending bills he signed over the past month. State law appropriately grants the Governor the power to impound budgeted funds, and Corzine has claimed to be using the power, but refuses to say to what extent or to name the funds that will be impacted.

Unlike Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Lonegan, Marlboro Mayor Jonathan Hornik doesn’t want Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) obligations scrapped.

But like a lot of other mayors who found it hard to generate a party mood at the League of Municipalities conference in the face of a deadline at the end of this month to submit finished plans in concert with the new rules, the mayor does want lawmakers to review COAH – and at the very least make some exceptions.

Specifically, Hornik wants Gov. Jon Corzine and the Legislature to consider amending the new regs so years-long, painstaking work Marlboro officials undertook to transfer some of the Monmouth County town’s affordable housing stock to Trenton won’t be rendered invalid.  

Gov. Jon Corzine

TRENTON - Emerging from passing six bills, part of a larger, nine-bill $245 million economic recovery plan championed by Gov. Jon Corzine - senators in both parties agreed that the work today represents only a small part of what’s required. 

Predictably, Democrats and some dissenting Republicans diverged starkly on fundamentals, with key GOP reps doubtful about enabling government to work as a problem solver, and Democrats digging in to take another big crack at the problem with that all-purpose tool: government.

“I think today New Jersey took a step in the right direction,” said state Sen. Paul Sarlo (D-Bergen), whose EDA Main Street Assistance bill dishes $50 million to help jumpstart small businesses. “We recognize this needs to be solved on the national level. But although a lot of Republicans talked, many of them came with us in the end.”

It's the perfect time to reopen the budget and pass real reform

Senator Steve Oroho (R-24), a member of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, issued the following statement today urging Governor Corzine to immediately provide specifics about the savings he expects from state departments and agencies to help eliminate a $1.2 billion budget shortfall. A recent bond prospectus indicates that the governor is counting on $625 million from various state departments to balance the budget this year (fiscal 2009) and in fiscal year 2010.

If Republicans Scott Garrett, Christopher Myers and Leonard Lance win hotly contested House races next week, it is unlikely that Democrats would invest heavily in these traditionally GOP districts again in 2010.  But Democratic victories would make these districts battlegrounds in the 2010 mid-term elections.

If Garrett survives -- Politicker.com's The Pindell Report has the seat as Leans Republican -- he'll have a firm lock on the 5th district seat until at least 2012, when mapmakers draw new congressional districts.  But if blind Rabbi Dennis Shulman upsets Garrett, he'd immediately become one of the nation's most vulnerbale Democratic Congressmen. There is already talk among some Bergen County Republicans that Assemblyman David Russo would enter the race to challenge Shulman in 2010.  Russo sought the seat six years ago when Marge Roukema retired and lost to Garrett 45%-24% after splitting the Bergen GOP vote with State Sen. Gerald Cardinale.

Position on Rural Policing Shows Hypocrisy of Corzine Administration

Senator Steven Oroho (R-24) responded to a Star-Ledger report published yesterday that expressed the Corzine Administration's decision to charge rural communities for State Police patrols. The article states:

Administration officials contend it isn't fair for taxpayers in places with their own police departments to also have to pay for patrols of other municipalities.

Senate Minority Leader Ton Kean, Jr. (R-Union), and Sen. Leonard Lance (R-Hunterdon).: Politicker photo

State Sen. Thomas Kean, Jr., (R-Union) became minority leader just as a new band of hungry Republican legislators came up from the General Assembly to assume their Senate seats.

Another under 40 senator with statewide aspirations might send out at least back channel messages of panic in the face of a baseball roster's worth of new GOP talent.

And indeed there have been some nose-to-nose moments in the last few months since Kean made caucus boss, notably between the patrician leader and the headstrong state Sen. Kevin O'Toole (R-Essex).

But according to his colleagues, the stoic Kean has generally met the onrush by embracing it; and has assumed a statesmanlike stance while tapping the scrappy skills honed by his freshmen senators in the lower house.

Senator Steve Oroho, Assemblywoman Alison Littell McHose and Assemblyman Gary Chiusano (R-24, Sussex, Morris, Hunterdon) sent a letter today to Commissioner Lisa Jackson of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection requesting that the Department publicly release its figures on the present bear population in New Jersey.

Assemblywoman Alison McHose and Assemblyman David Rible today in Trenton. 

TRENTON - A day after Gov. Jon Corzine and the Democrats launched what had the vibe of a pre "overwhelming victory" party, Republicans attempted a low-key, state-level counter-offensive here this afternoon at the height of the budget season.

While Democrats may be in the throes of Obama fever, "Jon Corzine is not terribly popular now," said Assembly Whip Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield), referring to the governor’s 38% job approval rating, according to Quinnipiac University.

Battling for some GOP respect, Bramnick announced the formation of the New Republican Policy Committee, which he hopes will be one of the features of a new-face Republican party. The move comes in an atmosphere in which the departing Republican president’s job approval rating is 22% and Obama leads presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain by six points.