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BY TOM HESTER SR.
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
If Sen. Richard Codey (D-Essex) or Sen. Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) expects to be elected Senate president before Jan. 12 when the upper house reorganizes, one of them must come up with the solid support of 21 Democratic senators or deal with Senate Republican leader Sen. Tom Kean (R-Union).
Kean has the votes of the 17 Republican senators, 4 short of the number needed to become Senate president.
With the gubernatorial and Assembly elections history, the wheeling and dealing going on behind the scenes as Codey seeks support for his re-election as president, and Sweeney, the Democratic majority leader, plots to unseat him, is the best political intrigue going for Jersey political junkies. Voter turnout on Tuesday showed the majority of New Jerseyans could not care less about politics. At this point, according to political leaders familiar with the scramble for support, Sweeney has as many as 14 Democrats behind him and Codey 8 or 9. Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) stayed out of the backroom politics while unsuccessfully campaigning for lieutenant governor. There are 23 Democrats."I have said since October that we are unified. We will vote as a block,'' Kean said. "The Republican caucus has endorsed me for Senate president.''
Although the elections of legislative party leaders usually occur within 10 days after an election, as of Friday, neither Senate nor Assembly Democrats had set a date to pick their majority leaders or lesser officers. In the Senate, Codey as the senior senator sets both the Democratic officers' election date and the day his party and the 17 Republicans get together to select a president.
While the Assembly Republicans on Thursday re-elected Assemblyman Alex DeCroce (R-Morris) as their leader and Kean has been re-elected as Senate Republican leader, Codey has not set the date to elect a president because he and Sweeney continue to scramble to gather the 21 Democrats needed to overcome the 17- vote Republican block or negotiate with Kean.
Codey and Sweeney declined the opportunity to comment on the status of their election bids on Thursday and Friday.
Kean realizes he has a slim chance of becoming Senate president. With the loss of the governor's office to Republican Chris Christie, the Democrats, especially the ironed-willed Codey and Sweeney, who is backed by South Jersey Democratic boss George Norcross, would not be expected to allow Kean to achieve the presidency.
In an attempt to lure North Jersey Democratic senators to their side, Sweeney and Norcross proposed that they would work to see rookie Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver (D-Essex) elected to replace Roberts as Assembly speaker. Roberts opted not to seek re-election to the lower house.
But Corzine's defeat may have actually helped Codey and it left Sweeney with egg on his face.
While Democrats in Codey's home base of Essex County turned out and vote heavily for Corzine, Democrats in Sweeney's Gloucester, lost both the county to Christie and an Assembly seat to the Republicans. Norcross, meanwhile, failed to bring in Camden County overwhelmingly for the governor.
Kean declined to discuss any conversations he has had with Codey or Sweeney.
"I've talked to a whole slew of Senate Republicans and Democrats alike on a whole slew of issues,'' he said. "These conversation will be going on up until the reorganization meeting."
Asked what the Republicans want to come out of the power struggle, Kean indicated he is looking for a Democratic-controlled Legislature that would be willing to compromise with Christie on bills important to the new administration.
"I think what the people of the state of New Jersey called out for in the last election cycle was a bipartisan solution to the affordability crisis and lower taxes,'' he said. "They want more transparency in government and they want job creation. It is the belief of the Republican caucus that the Senate president is the best way to achieve those goals.''
Weinberg can make this occur since that will give Sweeney 15 and maybe allow Cunningham to move over and become #16. At that point some of the old guard ( Smith ,Gordon,Girgenti,and Sacco) might have to pull Codey aside and tell him that a prolonged fight on this will hurt the Party and might hurt their reelections in 2011. Rice and Turner would vote for Satan before they would ever vote for Sweeney.
The bottom line is that Codey can't win but he can help destroy the unity that will be needed in the Senate .