Valerie Huttle

If U.S. Rep. Steven Rothman (D-Fair Lawn) decides not to seek re-election next year, possible candidates for his seat include: State Sens. Robert Gordon (D-Fair Lawn) and Paul Sarlo (D-Wood-Ridge), retiring Englewood Mayor Michael Wildes, Assemblyman Gordon Johnson (D-Englewood), Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D-Englewood), and Bergen County Freeholder Bernadette McPherson.

If State Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck) loses her bid for Lt. Governor, she could emerge as a strong candidate for Congress.  If Weinberg wins, Huttle is the favorite to take her State Senate seat.  Sarlo, the Senate Judiciary Chairman, has not expressed a huge desire to go to Congress; he is a possible candidate for Senate Majority Leader next year, or to chair the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. 

Wildes, who is not seeking re-election after two terms as mayor, has long been interested in Rothman's congressional seat.  A strong fundraiser, he has $642,983 sitting in a federal campaign account, just in case.

Four Bergen County Democrats -- Valerie Huttle (D-Englewood), Gordon Johnson (D-Englewood), Joan Voss (D-Fort Lee), and Connie Wagner (D-Paramus) -- are expected to endorse Sheila Oliver (D-East Orange) for Assembly Speaker today.  Gary Schaer (D-Passaic) also says he's voting for Oliver.  That would bring her hard count to 39.

Five incumbents seeking re-election have not yet disclosed their choice in the race for Speaker: Gary Schaer (D-Passaic), Elease Evans (D-Paterson), Nellie Pou (D-Paterson), Joan Quigley (D-Jersey City), Vincent Prieto (D-Secaucus), and Wayne DeAngelo (D-Hamilon).  A seventh incumbent, Anthony Chiappone (D-Bayonne), who is under indictment, has been tossed from the Democratic Caucus.

If Loretta Weinberg is elected Lt. Governor in November, it would mean a January 2010 special election convention to fill her 37th district State Senate seat.  Democrats say the four leading candidates would be Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D-Englewood), Assemblyman Gordon Johnson (D-Englewood), outgoing Englewood Mayor Michael Wildes, and former Assemblyman Ken Zisa.  Huttle's husband is the Democratic candidate to succeed Wildes as Mayor.

"I intend to move up to the state senate, if the opportunity arises," Johnson told PolitickerNJ.com last month.

Zisa's fortunes could depend on the outcome of former Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero's federal corruption trial.  Zisa and Ferriero are longtime allies.

Updated
If Loretta Weinberg is elected Lt. Governor in November, it would mean a January 2010 special election convention to fill her 37th district State Senate seat.  Democrats say the four leading candidates would be Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D-Englewood), Assemblyman Gordon Johnson (D-Englewood), outgoing Englewood Mayor Michael Wildes, and former Assemblyman Ken Zisa.  Huttle's husband is the Democratic candidate to succeed Wildes as Mayor.

"I intend to move up to the state senate, if the opportunity arises," Johnson told PolitickerNJ.com today.

Should Johnson or Valerie Huttle go to the Senate, look for one of the Democrats on the Teaneck Township Council to move up to the Assembly, as well as Cid Wilson, a party leader from Leonia who backed off a primary challenge against Huttle and Johnson (D-Englewood) in 2007 and 2009.  That race would be decided in a subsequent special election convention.

The Republican gubernatorial primary is over, but Democrats apparently have no intention of letting fade away the accusation by former candidate Rick Merkt that a friend and advisor of newly minted Republican nominee Chris Christie tried to buy him out of the gubernatorial race.

Assembly members Reed Gusciora (D-Princeton) and Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D-Englewood) today again called on Acting U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra to investigate whether John Inglesino, a former Morris County freeholder, offered Merkt, an assemblyman from Christie's home town of Mendham, a plum position on the campaign and in a future Christie administration if he dropped his plans to run for governor.

"Three weeks ago, Assemblyman Gusciora and I called on law enforcement to investigate a report of impropriety and see if the law had been broken," said Huttle.  "The politicking of the primary election is now behind us, but the specter of corruption remains. Now is the time to determine if, and to what extent an illegal act took place.  Now that the election is over we need to get to the bottom of this."

Merkt wound up getting a miniscule portion of the vote in Tuesday's primary, although his impact on the race was not clear when he announced his intention to run late in the summer.

The Republican campaign for State Assembly in 2009 is in a full swing already in April. As we reviewed our issues from the Republican campaign for State Assembly in 2007, we realized that despite our defeat at the polls, we have won the war of ideas.

In 2007, we proposed the following:

Left to right: Joseph Coniglio (D-Paramus), Louis Kosco (R-Paramus), and Rose Heck (R-Hasbrouck Heights)

Joseph Coniglio, described during his federal corruption trial as a man with unspectatular intellectual aptitude, was elected to the New Jersey State Senate in 2001, defeating three-term Republican State Sen. Louis Kosco (R-Paramus) by 3,543 votes, a 53%-47% margin. 

Redistricting altered the 38th district, which had been a competitive legislative district through the 1980’s, in favor of the Democrats 2001.  Two large Democratic towns, Fair Lawn and Fort Lee, were added to the district.  Joseph Ferriero, who was in his fourth year as the Bergen County Democratic Chairman, picked Coniglio, a 58-year-old plumber and union official, to run for the Senate with the hope that the former two-term Paramus Councilman would hold down Kosco’s hometown Paramus plurality and build margins in other parts of the district.  The strategy worked: Coniglio won Fair Lawn by 1,145 votes, Fort Lee by 2,141 and Cliffside Park by 1,989.  He lost Paramus by just 877 votes.  In 1997, Kosco won Paramus by 2,781 in his 57%-43% victory over Democrat Valerie Vainieri Huttle.

Besides redistricting, Coniglio benefitted from some coat tails at the top of the ticket.  In the race for Governor, Democrat James E. McGreevey carried District 38 by a 61%-39% margin over Republican Bret Schundler. In the race for two State Assembly seats, Republican Rose Heck won re-election by a narrow 468 vote margin, but Democrat Matt Ahearn ousted GOP incumbent Nicholas Felice in a race where just 803 votes separated the top vote getter from the candidate in fourth place.

After the ’01 election, Republicans and Democrats each had twenty Senate seats and Republicans viewed Coniglio as one of their top targets in 2003 as they sought to regain control of the Senate.  Heck gave up her Assembly seat to run for the Senate, but the GOP could not compete with Democrats financially and Coniglio won his Democratic-leaning district 56%-44%, by a margin of 4,756 votes.  Republicans also lost Heck’s Assembly seat.

Christopher Gagliardi, 28, is challenging Valerie Vainieri Huttle and Gordon Johnson for an assembly seat

After months of speculation, Assembly Democrats Gordon Johnson (D-Englewood) and Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D-Englewood) will face a primary challenge after all.

But it appears that it will not be a bloody one.

“They’ve done a very, very good job. I have no ill will towards them,” said their challenger, Christopher Gagliardi.  “As a matter of fact, they recognized me as a hero in Bergen County, and I am indebted to them for all they’ve done so far.”

Gagliardi, a 28-year-old Englewood resident, was born with infantile autism.  Doctors would eventually advise his mother, Lynda Grace Monahan, to put him in a group home and medicate him with Ritalin.

“My mother defied them and said I could go places,” he said.  “This assembly race will be a great adventure.”

Michael Kasparian succeeded Joe Ferriero as Bergen County Democratic Chairman ten weeks ago.

Since taking over one of the most powerful county political parties in the state just ten weeks ago, Bergen County Democratic Chairman Michael Kasparian has brought a leadership style to the job that's drastically different from his predecessor, Joe Ferriero.

"I think in general in politics, the catalyst for conflicts is people or factions feelings alienated," said Kasparian, who served on Barack Obama's National Finance Committee and said that Obama's "no drama" slogan resonated with him.  "If you don't have the ability to sit down with someone and listen to a contrarian view without getting emotional and excited to the extent you can't be constructive, then you don't deserve a seat at the table. That's the kind of discipline I want our party to implement."

Ferriero, who supported Kasparian to take over the party several months after his indictment for alleged corruption, was flamboyant, high profile and autocratic.  Kasparian is quiet, plodding and open to compromise, according to members of both sides of a major party schism.

"It's a very different party today than it was a year ago. It's not focused on any individual.  It's focused on the party itself," said Democratic Freeholder David Ganz, who was loyal to Ferriero and supported Kasparian's ascendancy to the post.

If the uber-ambitious Englewood Mayor Michael Wildes decides he wants to pick his own successor, a split within the anti-Wildes faction of the Englewood Democratic Party could boost his chances.  Last night, Frank Huttle, a partner at one of the state's most politically influential law firms and the husband of Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D-Englewood), scored a 64%-36% victory over Councilman Scott Reddin for the endorsement of the local Democratic organization.  Reddin, a former aide to U.S. Rep. Steven Rothman (who is also a former Englewood Mayor) is saying he will remain in the race.  A three-way contest surely enhances the chances of a Wildes-backed candidate winning the June primary.

Some Democrats view the vote as a slap in the face of Rothman, who has often straddled the line between the Bergen County Democratic Organization and the reform group led by State Sen. Loretta Weinberg, Assemblyman Gordon Johnson (D-Englewood) and Valerie Huttle.  Team Weinberg controls the party apparatus in Englewood.