Valerie Huttle

Teaneck Councilman Adam Gussen, a critic of the Democratic splinter group headed up by state Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck), plans to seek an Assembly seat against Weinberg's allies in the District 37 Democrats' convention next month.

"I believe by and large the problems in New Jersey today are the result of the collective product of our legislators, and we cannot fix the problems with the people and the thinking that caused the problems," said Gussen in a phone interview with PolitickerNJ.com.

Gussen said that he has filed to take on incumbents Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D-Fair Lawn) and Gordon Johnson (D-Englewood).

The convention, where county committee members from the eleven towns that comprise the legislative district will choose who will get the party line in the June primary, is planned for Wednesday, March 11th.

Gussen said that he will not run in the primary if he does not win, and that he's signed an affidavit to that effect.  Johnson and Huttle both said they refused to sign the affidavit when it was presented to them, since at the time they were not convinced the convention would be fair.

Gussen called Johnson a hypocrite for using "rhetoric about reform, transparency and open government, and yet you have someone representing the district who is a triple dipper, a dual office-holder and has financially supported Lyndon LaRouche."

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Onetime Polish dissident Wojciech Siemaszkiewicz says he will run for State Assembly in 2009, seeking a rematch of his ’07 race against incumbents Valerie Huttle and Gordon Johnson in District 37.  Siemaszkiewicz finished more than 12,000 votes behind the incumbents in the last election.   Republicans have not yet settled on a second Assembly candidate.

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Englewood Mayor Michael Wildes decision not to seek a third term will become an early test for newly-elected Bergen County Democratic Chairman Michael Kasparian.  Kasparian must decide if he will award the organization line this spring to a candidate backed by the traditionally anti-organization Englewood Democratic Party, support a candidate recommended by Wildes, or seek a compromise candidate that both factions can agree upon.

According to The Record, Council President Charlotte Bennett Schoen and Councilman Scott Reddin are mulling mayoral bids.  Englewood Democratic Municipal Chair Deirdre Glenn Paul, a professor at Montclair State University, is also a potential candidate.  And some Democrats say that Rev. Vernon Walton, a Bergen County Freeholder and former Englewood Councilman, could also emerge as a mayoral candidate.

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New Bergen County Democratic Organization (BCDO) Chairman Michael Kasparian wants to avoid a primary blowup in a gubernatorial election year, and to that end today made it clear he has only olive branch intentions when it comes to Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D-Englewood) and Assemblyman Gordon Johnson (D-Englewood).

There will be no organizational primary challenge to the two 37th District incumbents this year, he said, depite Huttle and Johnson’s initial intransigence regarding Kasparian’s candidacy and his perceived closeness to jettisoned BCDO Chairman Joseph Ferriero.

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If Hunterdon County Freeholder Matthew Holt wins his bid for State Assembly, he'll follow a 23rd district tradition of sending the scion of prominent Republican families to the Legislature.  He is the grandson of Clifford Case, who represented New Jersey in the United States Senate from 1955 to 1979, and Union County in the State Assembly from 1943 to 1944.

Leonard Lance, who represented the 23rd district from 1991 until taking his seat in Congress earlier this month, is the son of Wesley Lance, a former Senate President who served from 1942 to 1943, and again from 1954 to 1962.  Walter "Moose" Foran, who served in the Assembly from 1970 to 1977, and in the Senate from 1977 until his death in 1986, was the son of former Senate President Arthur Foran, who served from 1936 to 1941.

Seven legislators had fathers who served in Trenton: State Senators Christopher Bateman and Christopher Connors, Assemblyman Thomas Giblin and Assemblywoman Alison Littell McHose had fathers who were in the State Senate; and State Sen. Thomas Kean, Jr., Assemblyman Peter Barnes and Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle had fathers who served in the State Assembly. Read More >

There is speculation among some Bergen County Democrats with ties to the current leadership and to Michael Kasparian, the most likely candidate to succeed Joseph Ferriero as Bergen County Democratic Chairman, that the BCDO will seek to avoid a State Assembly primary in District 37.  There has been talk that the BDCO would look to oust four-term Assemblyman Gordon Johnson (D-Englewood), as there was two years ago when Ferriero endorsed a slate of candidates against Johnson, State Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck), and Assemblywoman Valerie Huttle (D-Englewood).  Now the conventional wisdom is that Kasparian will look to heal some wounds – not expand them – and more importantly, seek to conserve campaign dollars by not spending heavily in a primary. 

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HACKENSACK – The Bergen reformer’s fear is someone disgraced or incarcerated will be running the party, giving orders via cellphone or BlackBerry to drones working in the service of a political patronage system that grinds forward unchanged even as the feds expose and prosecute the upper eschelons. 

But it’s also an election year – for governor, no less – and in that all important, 70-community county of Bergen, which Democrats or Republicans must win in order win it all in 2009 – tampering with the Democratic Party infrastructure and leaving it depleted or less than muscular could give the GOP that one opportunity they’re seeking. 

Indeed, even as Joe Ferriero wrote his letter of resignation as chairman of the Bergen County Democratic Organization (BCDO), former U.S. Attroney Chris Christie – the man whose office last year indicted Ferriero on federal corruption charges – filed his papers to run for governor against Democrat Jon Corzine, setting up that most dramatic contrast of party plot lines, which the GOP wants to translate into crumbling utterly the Dems’ most vulnerable fault line here in Bergen.

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The announcement that U.S. Rep. Steven Rothman will spend Election Day in Chicago with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama fuels speculation that the Congressman from Bergen County may be up for a post in the new administration.  Rothman has said he has no interest, but then again, that's what they all say just before they take the job.

Rothman has been interested in moving up to the United States Senate, and he clearly has his eye on the seat of 84-year-old Democrat Frank Lautenberg, who is expected to win re-election to a record fifth term tomorrow.  Rothman and other Democrats are already planning as if the Senate seat will open up in 2014, and the harsh reality is that many of the potential candidates get that it might not take that long.  An Obama administration post doesn't necessarily take Rothman out of contention for a U.S. Senate seat (indeed, it could actually propel him past other Democratic Congressmen), unless the seat opens up within the next year or two.  

If Rothman leaves, the front runner to replace him was supposed to be State Sen. Paul Sarlo.  But recent health issues for the 40-year-old Bergen County Democrat are considered serious, and that could take Sarlo out of the race if there is a special election early next year.

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The announcement that an eclectic group of lawmakers have introduced a bill to require legislators to disclose their person income from public sources was a direct shot at Senate President Richard Codey.  The proposed law would force legislators, their spouses and their dependent children to report direct and indirect financial stakes in no-bid public contracts -- something Codey has been strongly opposed to.  The bill has the backing of Gov. Jon Corzine, South Jersey Democrats allied with party leader George Norcross, Bergen County Democrats opposed to indicted County Chairman Joseph Ferriero, and several key Republican Senators.

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Gov. Jon Corzine thinks that Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero should step down from his party post and his job as Counsel to the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission after his indictment this week on federal corruption charges, according to his spokesman.

"Governor Corzine has been consistent and clear in how he feels about political figures under indictment. They should step aside," Sean Darcy, Corzine's press secretary, told PolitickerNJ.com. Last year, Corzine sought the resignation of two Democratic Assemblymen who had been arrested on corruption charges.

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