Raising Keans

Bridget Kean, Assemblyman Sean Kean’s wife, gave birth to triplets this afternoon!

Sean, Mary and Terrence were born at Jersey Shore Medical Center at 1:30, according to Politickernj.

Sean told MMM that mother and children are healthy. 

Congratulations and God Bless the Keans!

• Tweet

Name that lawyer/politican Poll Closed

That decorated tricep belongs to Marlboro Council President Frank LaRoccaMMM received an emotional email from Frank LaRocca this morning asking that we not make political fodder of his new tattoo.

The tattoo is a tribute to LaRocca’s recently passed law partner, Andrew Hegt, who died suddenly at the age of 35 on June 14.  Hegt was the father of five children, including newborn twins.

“My tattoo is St. Andrew’s Cross and the Scales of Justice,” said LaRocca, “it is an artistic tribute to a man I loved dearly and who died tragically.”

LaRocca has created the Hegt Memorial Fund with an initial goal of raising $100,000.  LaRocca says he’s raised $40 thousand so far. $6,506 has been raised on the fund’s website.

• Tweet

Current, Former Legislators Endorse Bennett for Monmouth GOP Chair

Senator Robert Singer, Assemblymen Sean Kean and Declan O’Scanlon as well as former Assembly members Clare Farragher, Michael Arnone, and Marie Muhler (also former Surrogate) have endorsed John Bennett for Monmouth GOP Chair in a letter to County Committee members that reads as follows:

We are writing to request your support for our friend, former colleague and State Committeeman Senator John Bennett as the next Chair of the Monmouth County Republican Party.

Senator Bennett, as a member of the Monmouth County legislative delegation for over twenty-four years, has always put the interests of the people of Monmouth County first.  Whether it was improving the environment, cutting taxes, bringing home State dollars or fighting for our seniors, John was in the forefront and got the job done.

Besides his excellent legislative record, Senator Bennett has time and time again demonstrated his leadership ability.  For years he served as Chairman of the Assembly Environmental Committee and championed some of the most effective environmental legislation in the history of our State.

Upon being elected to the New Jersey Senate, Senator Bennett was soon selected by his legislative colleagues to become he Deputy Majority Leader and thereafter the Senate Majority Leader.  In January 2002, Senator Bennett became the Senate President and was sworn in on the same day as Acting Governor of New Jersey.

Senator Bennett has proposed a Ten-Point-Plan for this platform as our Chairman which includes: returning the County Convention System for candidate selection, developing and implementing a set of by-laws within sixty (60) days and establishing a Board of Directors with regional representatives.  He has also pledged that his law firm will not accept any County work or any County job during his tenure as County Chair to avoid any perceived conflict of interest.

Senator Bennett is a proven leader who unites factions and can maitain our party as a strong and inclusive one,  his experience and leadership will serve our Coutny origanization well and we urge you to supoort him at the convention on Tuesday June 12 at 7:00 P.M. at the Colts Neck High School for Monmouth Republican Chair.

 

• Tweet

Clifton will endorse Hanlon for Monmouth County GOP Chair

Assemblyman Rob Clifton will join Senators Joe Kyrillos and Jennifer Beck, and his Assembly colleagues Mary Pat Angelini, Amy Handlin, and Dave Rible in endorsing GOP State Committeewoman Christine Hanlon as the next Monmouth County GOP Chair.

A formal announcement is expected later today or tomorrow.

Clifton’s endorsement will give Hanlon the formal support of 6 of the 9 member of the Monmouth County Legislative Delegation.  Assembly members Sean Kean, Declan O’Scanlon and Caroline Casagrande have yet to express a preference for either Hanlon or her opponent, former Senate President John Bennett.

• Tweet

Assemblyman Sean Kean Weighs In On Judge Paul Escandon, Alimony and Child Support Reform

Assemblyman Sean Kean

Assemblyman Sean Kean says he and Judge Paul Escandon do not share a political agenda, that his proposed legislation to reform alimony and child support is not anti-women, and that he believes in the integrity, ethics and fairness of Escandon.

Kean was responding to Rachel Alintoff’s comment to Governor Chris Christie, “Judge Escandon is the former law partner of Assemblyman Sean Kean whose main platform is reducing Alimony for women. What will you do as Governor to make sure that Judges are kept from carrying out their own political agendas from the bench?”

“Alintoff has been having lots of people call my office about her case,” said Kean, “we tell them we are not familiar with the case and it would be inappropriate for a legislator to call a Judge about a case.”

Kean is the sponsor of two pieces of legislation regarding alimony and child support.  

A685, which is co-sponsored by Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon.  The companion bill in the Senate, S1388 is sponsored by Democratic Senator Nicholas Scutari, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Republican Senator Gerald Cardinale.   The bill provides for modification of child support and certain alimony cases due to changed circumstances.  Kean says this bill makes the Lepis decision, a 1980 NJ Supreme Court decision that defined “change of circumstances” for alimony cases legislated law rather than case law. “This bill puts the current case law into legislation,” said Kean.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

Walsh Campaign Announces Endorsements From Singer, Kean and Rible

Howell Mayor Bob Walsh announced today that the 30th legislative district team of Senator Bob Singer, Assemblyman Sean Kean and Assemblyman Dave Rible have endorsed his candidacy for Freeholder.

The announcement can be viewed here.

• Tweet

MMM Year In Review – April

As is customary, April started with a joke.   This year the month of April ended with two jokes; the school board elections  and the President of the United States of America released his long form birth certificate.

After three years of study, Hopewell Township passed an ordinance regulating chicken sex.

A tongue in cheek post about who the Democrats could get to challenge Senator Joe Kyrillos when their endorsed candidate failed to submit his nominating petitions, generated more calls from Trenton than any other post of the year.

The worst joke of the month has consequences that will last at least a decade.  “Continuity of representation,” a political value in the mind of Rutgers professor Alan Rosenthal, trumped competitiveness and the state constitution in determining the lines of the new gerrymandered legislative map.

The stakes were so high that Governor Christie got personally involved in the negotiations regarding the map.  But Rosenthal’s was the only vote that counted.  The professor was not persuaded by the governor.

The map was so gerrymandered for the Democrats that Christie and the Republicans did not even try to win control of the legislature.  The governor, who came into office vowing to “turn Trenton upside down” transformed into the “compromiser in chief” in order to salvage what he could of his reform agenda.

While Rosenthal preserved the status quo for the Trenton trough swilling class, he unwittingly contributed to the creatation of a national Republican rock star, as Christie, freed up from having to work to win control of the legislature transferred his political attentions to the national stage.

The new map was no joke for many in Monmouth County. 

Senator Sean Kean of Wall was put into the same district as his friend, Senator Robert Singer of Lakewood.  After a few days of saber rattling about a primary for the seat, cooler heads prevailed as Kean agreed to go back to the Assembly to represent the safely Republican 30th district. 

Ocean County Republican Chairman George Gilmore told MMM that the Democrats put Singer and Kean in the same district in the hopes that the GOP would waste resources on a contentious primary in a safe district.  The real reason was that the Democrats were horrified at the prospect of Dan Jacobson returning to the legislature in the upper house.

Jacobson was preparing a fanatasy Republican primary challenge to Kean for Senate should Wall and Asbury Park remain in the same district.   The Democrats, who have never understood Monmouth County, didn’t realize the futility of such an endeavor.  But they knew Jacobson and they weren’t taking any chances.  So they put Senator Jennifer Beck in the same district as Jacobson, knowing that he would never challenge her in a primary.  Jacobson, through his newspaper, created Jennifer Beck.  Just ask him.

The new 11th district would be represented by Beck in the Senate and Mary Pat Angelini and Caroline Casagrande in the Assembly.  A district represented by three women.  A historic first. 

Assemblyman Dave Rible, formerly of the 11th,  was now in the 30th with Singer and Kean.

The new 12th district provided brief drama due to the fact that the lines created a senate vacancy.  Sam Thompson of Middlesex County and Ronald Dancer of Ocean County were the incumbent Assemblymen in the predominently Western Monmouth district.   The Monmouth GOP wanted to keep three senators.  Thompson wanted to move up. Freeholder Director Rob Clifton had long eyed Thompson’s seat in the assembly, but the senate vacancy presented an unexpected opportunity.  Always level headed and not one to needlessly rock the boat, Clifton let the Monmouth, Ocean, Middlesex and Burlington chairmen figure it out.  Thompson got the senate nod and Clifton joined the ticket with Dancer running for assembly.

The 13th district became even safer for Senator Joe Kyrillos.  Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon of Little Silver joined Kyrillos and Assemblywoman Amy Handlon in representing the district.   Marlboro Mayor Jon Hornick, a Democrat, had his ambitions put on hold by the map makers who put Marlboro into the 13th.

The Democrats did the best they could, but only put up nominal opposition in the Monmouth legislative districts and on the county level.

Former Howell Chair Norine Kelly passed away in April.

Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno threw Carl Lewis off the 8th legislative district ballot for Senate.

A team of six Red Bank Regional High School students won the national Cyber Patriot III competition in applied defense technology.

The Monmouth County Freeholders established term limits for boards and commissions.

• Tweet

MMM Year In Review – March

Governor Christie’s flirtation with the national media and GOP fundraisers over running for president started to build momentum during March.  He told reporters in Washington that he wouldn’t be governor in 2014.  He told the National Review’s Rick Lowry “I already know I could win” the presidency.

The Monmouth County Freeholders suspended three SCAT drivers who had called out sick on February 25 but were caught on camera protesting labor reforms in Trenton.  State Senator Joe Kyrillos praised the Freeholders for their action and stepped up his call for civil service reform.

Anna Little told The Auditor that she was thinking of running for U.S. Senate instead of Congress.

Peter Burnham was suspended as Brookdale College President on March 3.   On March 9 Burnham resigned.

Citizen journalist James O’Keefe embarrassed NPR and came to Monmouth County as a Special Guest Speaker at the Bayshore Tea Party Group’s St. Patrick’s Day Celebration.  O’Keefe ended up being embarrassed himself over the press coverage of the event which included accurate reports that he did not want the event videoed.

Monmouth University Pollster Patrick Murray accurately predicted that Dr. Alan Rosenthal, the tie breaking member of the legislative reapportionment, would choose the Democrats new legislative map.  Murray based his prediction on Rosenthal’s scholarlly work espousing “continuity of representation,” i.e.,  that there is a value to voters being continuously represented by the same legislator after redistricting.

Even though MMM debunked the value of “continuity of representation” and the Bayshore Tea Party Group submitted a constitutional map, Rosenthal did indeed side with the Democrats, thereby assuring Democratic control of the legislature at least until the 2021 election.

After months of reading MMM, former Democratic Assemblyman and triCityNews publisher Dan Jacobson had an epiphany and registered as a Republican.   Jacobson started submitting his weekly columns to MMM and prepared to challenge Senator Sean Kean in old 11th district Republican primary. 

Spring Lake Councilman Gary Rich received the Monmouth GOP’s endorsement for Freeholder.  Rich received 25 votes from the screening committee.  Manalapan Mayor Andrew Lucas received 23 votes and Wall Committeeman George Newberry received 22 votes.  Howell Mayor Bob Walsh removed himself from contention prior to the committee vote.

• Tweet

Jacobson Not Running For Assembly In GOP 11th Primary

By Art Gallagher

triCityNews publisher Dan Jacobson told MoreMonmouthMusings that he will not be a candidate for Assembly in 11th district Republican primary because, “it just doesn’t feel right.”   “I like both incumbents,” Jacobson said of Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini and Caroline Cassagrande,  “it wouldn’t be like challenging Sean Kean.”

Jacobson of Asbury Park, a former Democratic member of the Assembly, registered as a Republican last month in preparation of challenging Kean in the Senate primary.  The new legislative map moved Kean, of Wall, into the 30th legislative district.  Kean will be running for Assembly in the 30th, as Republican Senator Robert Singer, Lakewood, also resides in the new 30th.

Jacobson is angry with Kean over his vote against gay marriage.

• Tweet

Did Senator Kean Miss An Opportunity?

 By Tommy DeSeno

Have you ever seen a news wave?  It’s a real phenomenon in journalism.  One outlet says something, then outlet after outlet says the same thing, never verifying if the first outlet was right.  And you can’t stop a wave, even if it’s wrong.
 
As soon as the new 30th district was announced, immediately the word got out that Senator Singer would have the advantage over Senator Kean.  I guess Senator Kean concurred, having agreed to move down to the Assembly.
 
I like Singer.  But his comments in the Press yesterday that Sean Kean would be primaried even if Singer retired has me angry.  It’s as if Bob is throwing down the gauntlet and declaring that the rest of us will be governed by Lakewood for the next 10 years.
 
Well, as a Howell boy, I’m pretty upset that I had to be governed by Lakewood the last 10 years.  So I’m calling bullshit on Singer, which I can do even though we are friends, because I’m a journalist first.
 
Howell and Wall combined are larger than Lakewood, so if Howell and Wall got behind Kean, that could be a fair fight against Lakewood.
 
As for the rest of the district, those little Monmouth shore towns are larger than the 2 Pt. Pleasants, and Sean has name recognition there while Singer does not.
 
I know what the road block would have been – Howell Republicans.  They rarely get along.  But John Costigan is a strong Municipal Chair.  He could have pulled the Howell Republicans together (which would be a nice thing all by itself) to back Kean.  The rallying cry would have been provincial but effective –  Monmouth needs to keep a Senator.
 
I really wish Sean decided to stay Senator.  I’m not reading next week’s triCityNews, because I don’t want to know what Dan Jacobson will call Sean now.

• Tweet