Senatorial Courtesy, an oft written about unwritten rule of the legislative confirmation process that is in the news in New Jersey due to a battle that Governor Chris Christie is having with the Essex County senate delegation over the confirmation of Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf.
On the federal level, both U.S. senators of a state, or the senior senator of the presidents party, can block the confirmation of a presidential appointee who resides in the state the senators represent.
In New Jersey, a senator can block the confirmation of a gubernatorial appointee who resides in the senator’s home county.
On both the federal level and in New Jersey, the senators don’t need a reason to block the confirmation.
The Democrats who control the New Jersey Senate are apparently stung by Governor Christie’s campaign against senatorial courtesy and the Essex County Democrats that Christie has targeted with criticism. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Nicholas Scutari (D-Union) has instructed the Office of Legislative Services to restrict access to the data base of who is exercising senatorial courtesy to only the Senate President and top staffers, thereby preventing Republicans from finding out who is blocking the governor’s appointments, according to The Star Ledger.
We don’t hear much about the Monmouth County delegation invoking senatorial courtesy. The last time I can recall it the tradition being discussed publicly regarding a Monmouth County nominee was when Democratic County Chairman Victor Scudiery asked then Republican Senator Joe Palaia to block Luis Valentin’s appointment as prosecutor in 2005. Palaia declined and Valentin was confirmed.
Just because we don’t hear about it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
Thanks to our massive, grassroots push, the language repealing the Edison 100-watt light bulb ban *amazingly* made it into the Conference Report of the Omnibus Appropriations Bill where it had been forgotten by the powers that be until just this past week. The House will vote on that language today and it will probably pass. However, Harry Reid and the President may back away from that Omnibus Bill because of the Keystone Pipeline issue and taking issue w/the pro-life rider prohibiting funding for DC abortions. Also, the 3000-page Conference document is not completely conservative – in general. Ah, Washington, DC…
Nice credible poll. Obvious it can be rigged. Read the site last night at about 11pm and Walsh had like 4 votes. And them whamo…overnight he gets 200 more. Yeah right.
Tim has a point. I laughed heartily first thing this morning when I saw that the Freeholder poll had 300 votes overnight. I checked the site statistics which revealed there was only 140 overnight visitors. Even though I set the poll up for only one vote per IP address and one vote per computer (by cookie) someone figured a way around that, which is not rocket science.
Senate President Stephen Sweeney famously called Governor Chris Christie a “rotten prick” last summer over the budget. Assembly Speaker Sheila has called Christie a liar, a bully and implied his his administration was racist. Christie just shrugs it off and keeps working with them.
Former Acting Governor Richard Codey, Sweeney’s predecessor, called Christie a liar earlier this week. Christie responded by firing Codey’s cousin from a $215,000 job at the Pork Authority and cancelling Codey’s State Police security detail.
Codey can take comfort in the fact that Christie is giving him more rough and especially tumble material for the paperback edition to his book and that he hasn’t tumbled as far as Jon Corzine.
The Borough of Oceanport, home of Monmouth Park, 1/3 of Fort Monmouth and 6,000 residents has offered to serve as a temporary landlord and transitional vehicle of the racetrack, according to NJ.com.
In a letter to Governor Chris Christie , Mayor Michael J. Mahon offered the borough’s resources and commitment to resolve the current differences and provide a new model for sustainability for the park.
The deal to transfer Monmouth Park from state control, under the auspices of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, to a private management by developer and casino investor Morris Bailey fell apart earlier this monthover a dispute between the state and the New Jersey Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association over racing date licenses. On Monday, Christie said the horsemen had a week to come up with an acceptable proposal or risk the park’s closure.
Holmdel Mayor Bob Walsh at the 2009 Optimist Club of Howell's Annual Breakfast for Special Needs and Underprivleged Children
By Art Gallagher
The photo posted this morning in Tis The Season has caused quite a stir and prompted many phone calls and emails, including a call from Howell Mayor Bob Walsh who said he expected such posts from Kathy Barratta but not from me.
Walsh put his appearance at the Monmouth County Federation of Republican Women’s Holiday Luncheon, dressed as an elf, in context and provided more photos. He said he has been appearing at the Optimist Club of Howell’s Annual Breakfast with Santa for special needs and underprivileged children for 8 years. That’s were he was prior to attending the Federation’s luncheon in Red Bank.
Walsh said his appearance as an elf at the luncheon was just a quick stop between events. After the luncheon he went on to a baby shower and then to another charitable event for special needs children at a private venue.
Walsh does not yet have photos from last Saturday’s Optimist event, but said he would send them on when he gets them.
MMM welcomes similar photos of any other Freeholder candidate.
Howell Mayor Bob Walsh, left, and Holmdel Deputy Mayor Serena DiMaso, second from the right, compete for support in their race for Freeholder, at the Monmouth County Federation of Republican Women's Holiday Luncheon.
So should the Assemblymen who are opposed to his nomination
Thomas Nast, the 19th century political cartoonist who gave Harper’s Weekly enough political influence to topple Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall and to sway the election of two presidents, Grant and Cleveland, has been nominated for the New Jersey Hall of Fame’sclass of 2012.
Nast, who popularized the image of Santa Claus and the partisan symbols of Donkeys and Elephants for Democrats and Republicans had an undeniable and enduring impact on American culture.
Nast lived in Morristown for over 20 years, starting in 1872.
His nomination to the NJ Hall of Fame has generated controversy from the Irish Catholic community who contend the artist was a anti-Irish/anti-Catholic bigot because he frequently depicted the Irish as drunken apes and Catholic bishops as crocodiles. Neil Cosgrove of New City, NY wrote in a Letter to the Editor in The Star Ledger that Nast is “the father of hateful and negative anti-Irish stereotypes that Irish-Americans continue to struggle against today.”
This Irish-American Catholic hasn’t struggled against stereotypes today, or any other day that I can remember.
Three New Jersey Assemblymen have jumped on the anti-Nast bandwagon. NorthJersey.com reports that Wayne DeAngelo (D-Mercer) and Dave Rible (R-Monmouth) have called on the NJ Hall of Fame to withdraw the nomination. Scott Rumana (R-Passaic) issued a press release echoing DeAngelo.
Pardon. Franchise. Columbia.-"Shall I trust these men, and not this man?" ~ Harper's Weekly, August 5, 1865
The Assemblymen and the Ancient Order of Hibernians have it wrong. Nast was not a bigot. Far from it. His political art, starting during the Civil War and through Reconstruction was fervently pro-equality for Blacks and other minorities.
'"The Chinese Question.' Columbia- "Hands off, gentleman! American means fair play for all men."' ~ Harpers Weekly, February 18, 1871
Nast’s anti-Irish and anti-Catholic cartoons were political, not ethnic or religious.
Morton Keller, Professor of History at Brandies University addressed Nast’s anti-Irish, anti-Catholic work on the centennial of the cartoonist death:
It may be asked why Nast’s sympathy for blacks, Indians, and Chinese did not extend to the Irish and Catholicism. Mid-nineteenth century liberals—and Nast certainly was one of them—regarded the Catholic church as the fount of anti-modernism and fanaticism. (See fig. 16.) This attitude was reinforced by the commitment of many Irish-Americans to the Democratic party, hostility to abolition, and Negrophobia. The intertwining of his hostility to the Church, the Irish, and the Tweed Ring suggest that for him this was another chapter in the ongoing struggle to preserve the American Union, and Lincoln’s new birth of freedom, from its enemies. In this sense the Confederates, the anti-Reconstruction, pro-Johnson Democrats, and the Tweed Ring and the Catholic church were parts of a collective whole. It stirred in Nast the peak of his distinctive mix of artistic inventiveness and political passion. (See figs. 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22.)
These drawings spoke to the political and social concerns of the core urban constituency of wartime and postwar Republicanism: Protestant farmers, professional and businessmen, shopkeepers, artisans.
This is Nast’s third year as a nominee for the New Jersey Hall of Fame. He’s up against tough competition in the “General” category. If not for the controversy, I would have chosen between Milton Friedman, Joyce Carol Oates or Governor Tom Kean.
But I voted for Nast and hope you do too. My fellow Irishmen from the Ancient Order of Hibernians should have researched Nast before making a PC stink and acting like Tommy DeSeno with his rants about how Italian-Americans are depicted in the movies. If the controversy the Hibernians created over Nast puts him over the top of the voting and into The Hall, it will be just comeuppance.
Senate President Stephen Sweeney famously called Governor Chris Christie a “rotten prick” last summer over the budget. Assembly Speaker Sheila has called Christie a liar, a bully and implied his his administration was racist. Christie just shrugs it off and keeps working with them.
Nast, who popularized the image of Santa Claus and the partisan symbols of Donkeys and Elephants for Democrats and Republicans had an undeniable and enduring impact on American culture.
