Joseph Roberts

Gary Schaer will replace Neil Cohen as Chairman of the Assembly Financial Institutions and Insurance CommitteeAssemblyman Gary Schaer (D-Passaic) is expected to be named chairman of the Assembly Financial Institutions and Insurance Committee. The post became available in July when Neil Cohen resigned his Assembly seat after being caught with child pornography on his state computer.  A formal announcement from Speaker Joseph Roberts is expected to come later this afternoon.  

With jurisdiction over the banking and insurance industries, the committee is considered to be one of the most powerful assignments in the Legislature.  Schaer, a two-term Assemblyman, has a background and career in the financial services industry and has formed a solid relationship with Roberts.  For now, Schaer will retain his vice chairmanship of the Assembly Budget Committee.

Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts is expected to announce tomorrow that Bill Castner will leave his post as Executive Director of the Assembly Majority Office in January and will be succeeded Bill Caruso, Congressman Rob Andrews' long-time chief of staff. 

Bill Castner will leave his post as Executive Director of the Assembly Majority Office at the end of the year

Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts is expected to announce tomorrow that Bill Castner will leave his post as Executive Director of the Assembly Majority Office in January and will be succeeded Bill Caruso, Congressman Rob Andrews' long-time chief of staff. 

Sources familiar with legislative vote counting say that Gov. Jon Corzine has the votes to pass his proposals for sweeping campaign finance reform in the State Senate and General Assembly.  In the Assembly, where his plan has the endorsement of Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts, the Governor has bi-partisan support that guarantees swift passage.  But in the Senate, where Republicans will give him plenty of votes, Corzine's problem is Senate President Richard Codey.  Codey, sources say, is strongly opposed to the proposed reforms and off-the-charts mad at Corzine. While the Assembly is expected to move quickly, Codey could offer considerable delays in the Senate.

With just over a year to go before he’s up for reelection, Gov. Jon Corzine today released a comprehensive package that he said is the final piece of ethics reform that he outlined during his 2005 gubernatorial campaign.

Corzine promised that the plan -- parts of which he’s already enacted through executive order and parts of which will require legislation-- will “end pay-to-play once and for all, at all levels of government.”

“We have reached a point where New Jerseyans have come to believe that instead of government of, by and for the people, we have a government of, by and for political contributors, lobbyists and those who are at every level of pay to play,” said Corzine at an outdoor ceremony in front of the state house.  “Today, that era ends.”

To prove his point, Corzine stood next to a checklist of his nine-point reform plan from his first campaign for governor.  Assuming that the reforms outlined today were passed, each one was checked off.

“All this is about accountability – not just about laying down new rules. It’s also about enforcing,” he said.

If you care: with Gov. Jon Corzine, Senate President Richard Codey and Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts in Denver attending the Democratic National Convention this week, Anne Milgram is manning the ship at home.  The Attorney General, fourth in the line of gubernatorial succession, is serving as Acting Governor.

DENVER - New Jersey’s Trenton triumvirate pumped up the delegation here a few hours before the Monday night main event, with Gov. Jon Corzine paying tribute to his legislative legmen: Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex) and Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts (D-Camden).

The presidential campaign will come down to who can reach out and grab those undecided voters, said Codey, who showed up here today with a big green pin on his lapel that says "O’bama."

First, the Democrats have to be buzzed.

"We’ve got to elect Obama," Codey cried to a packed house at the Inverness Hotel. "Come on you know it and I know it! You know, the press keeps asking, "Are you united? I mean, come on. Come on! Yes!"

The press conference yesterday headlined by Assembly members Allison Littell McHose  (R-Franklin) and Jay Webber (R-Morris Plains) that attacked the Clean Elections program produced several reverberations today. 

McHose (R-Franklin) took a comment by a staffer of the Assembly Democrats yesterday in response to the press conference as a promise that Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts (D-Camden) would work to rid the state of pay-to-play contributions.

A report in the Asbury Park Press said that Assembly Democratic spokesman Derek Roseman told the paper that Roberts “plans to reform pay-to-play in the fall.”

McHose took that sentence to mean a ban on the practice, and went on to call for more stringent measures.

JERSEY CITY - U.S. Rep. Albio Sires (D-West New York) been in Congress for almost two years, and he says his second year was a big improvement on the first, in part because he feels focused in his new job as a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

"It takes a while to be effective because it’s very much based on seniority," Sires said of the Congress. "The first year was very difficult. I was new. The entire Democratic Congress was new.

"But I have a mission now," said the freshman congressman. "I still enjoy being on the foreign affairs committee very much, but I also have transportation now and that’s critical. My job is to go after the money for transportation and infrastructure projects."

Sires has confidence he can get federal money for the ARC (Access to the Region’s Core) Tunnel, but he needs the state to get in gear.

TRENTON -- With the future of the Fair and Clean Elections program hanging in the balance and its supporters set to try to negotiate its fate in two weeks, four of its opponents gathered in the State House today to question not only the program's effectiveness, but the sincerity of some of its proponents.

Assembly members Jay Webber (R-Morris Plains) and Allison Littell McHose (R-Franklin) joined Virginia-based Center for Competitive Politics (CCP) President Sean Parnell and Center for Policy Research (CPR) of New Jersey Executive Director Greg Edwards to outline preliminary findings of the CCP's report that they say shows the program has been ineffective in virtually all of its stated goals. 

Most notable, according to Parnell, was the fact that special interest groups still appeared to exert large influence in collecting the hundreds of $10 donations needed to participate in the program.