Corzine: the end of the word is not at hand

Seated at a back table in an Ironbound restaurant on Wednesday afternoon, Gov. Jon Corzine listened as he heard the leadership of his party described as a three-headed hydra; an image used by Republicans on the campaign trail to characterize Senate President Richard Codey, Speaker Joseph Roberts - and Corzine.

The governor thinks it's ridiculous.

"We have a Constitution that separates power for a reason," said Corzine: to prevent one branch of government from usurping the authority that individuals have in each branch.

The appointment of former Attorney General Stuart Rabner to the office of state Supreme Court Justice is one of his proudest accomplishments as governor, given the quality and preparedness of the man, Corzine said. However, the judiciary is not the troubled branch of government by the reckoning of Corzine's fiercest critics - maybe philosophically with decisions such as Abbott - but at least not immediately.

The blueprint issue for those who say Corzine is consistently unable to get any leadership leverage on Codey and Roberts in the Statehouse was this year's dual office-holding bill. Corzine wanted an all-out ban, as did 12th district Democrats Sen. Ellen Karcher and Assemblyman Michael Panter, who sponsored the original bill.

But legislative leadership had a different view, and by the time Panter's and Karcher's bill emerged from the chambers of Trenton it was a far different document than the one they'd submitted, which at the end of it included a grandfather provision enabling current dual-office holders to survive in more than one post.

"I would have much preferred eliminating it, but they've been debating the issue of dual office-holding since 1947," said the governor, who argues that given the historical context, the state's new dual office-holding ban is significant.

"When the next election comes there will be five dual office-holders left in the legislature," said Corzine.

But in tough campaigns in a Republican-leaning district, Karcher and Panter couldn't make a compelling case that the dual office-holding ban they settled for was a crusading blow for good government, as they both lost.

While the governor stands by his argument on dual office-holding (and pay-to-play and wheeling), he says legislators like Panter in hard-boiled campaigns should have focused more on the tax relief and tax rebate packages engineered by the Democrats. The GOP tarred the Democrats' strategies as election year gimmickry, but Corzine said the property tax relief his administration has championed and secured for people in the $50,000 to $75,000 income bracket, the tax rebate plan for seniors and caps on local schools spending are pieces of a compelling argument in favor of Democratic Party control.

"I'm surprised Michael Panter didn't talk more about it," said Corzine, who was relaxed in Campino's as he talked with PolitickerNJ.com reporters and his old friend and former chief-of-staff Tom Shea, not far from Corzine's Newark office.

"It's improving here with the (Devils) arena," he said in response to a question about the city.

"What we need now is one anchor business to come in - one big company to create jobs. We're seeing some gains in education, the improvement of test scores."

Then he gave a nod to the unfortunate fact of Newark after dark, "Of course, the main issue still is crime, which is up in cities around the country, with New York the aberration."

The questioning went back to him and his administration, and the notion that - if it's not Codey and Roberts who have him in a hammerlock, well, then it's his own money, which inevitably gets the millionaire politician into trouble and/or elected with the good graces of the party bosses, and prevents him from standing forth as a real reformer. How can he lead by example?

When a candidate like Assemblyman Francis Bodine in the 8th district could abandon the Republican Party last spring and on the same day resurface as a Democratic candidate for state Senate with thousands of dollars of new party money behind him, people draw cynical conclusions about money and politics.

Corzine said he doesn't believe the 8th district race necessarily epitomized cynicism.

"In the senate particularly, the difference between moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans is not all that large," said the governor. "It's like the Joe Lieberman profile translated into state politics. It's not the first time I've seen someone switch parties. Some people would see Sen. Bill Gormley was too user-friendly with the opposition party."

Then he added something that went back to his understanding of his relationship with Codey and Roberts. "Compromise is a fundamental aspect of politics," Corzine said.

The big issues to come in the next cycle include a debate on the governor's unpopular asset monetization of the state's toll roads to balance the budget, a revamping of the schools funding formula to control spending while ensuring quality in the schools, and the hammering out of more specified provisions to complete the Global Warming Response Act.

The players are dogged, and not just in the leadership ranks.

On one side of the state there's Sen.-elect Jennifer Beck in a relatively affluent suburban district arguing that her constituent's schools need more money, and on the other side, in Newark, in a poor district that includes the Ironbound, stands Sen.-elect Teresa Ruiz arguing that her district needs dollars for programs and for schools the community's wanted to build for years.

Corzine has Newark's North Ward boss Steve Adubato grabbing his bad knee at a social event on one side and Goldman Sachs on the other, and New Jersey in the middle, irritated, as usual.

The compromises to come will be the machinations of legislative leaders and of Corzine, who is still fighting to assert himself two years into his first term. Whatever the outcome and however far-reaching, in any case, the governor insists he's optimistic. "I don't sit here and feel the world is at an end," the governor said.