Herb Jackson

The Record's Herb Jackson wrote about 2012 congressional redistricting in his Capital Games column this week, noting a PolitickerNJ.com fantasy map that pitted Republican Rodney Frelinghuysen and Democrat Bill Pascrell against each other in a general election contest.  Jackson reported that Democrats would like to see Steven Rothman pick up Scott Garrett's portion of Bergen County and force Frelinghuysen into a primary with Scott Garrett after New Jersey loses one of its thirteen House seats after the 2010 census.

Next time someone criticizes New York-based network news coverage of local politics in New Jersey, consider this: WNBC-TV’s Brian Thompson covered the mass defection of Lyndhurst Republicans, but The Record – Bergen County’s daily newspaper -- did not.   This cycle, The Record’s columnists, specifically Charles Stile, Alfred Doblin and Herb Jackson, have been at the top of their game, and clearly dominating political coverage.  Stile broke the story that Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli traveled to Italy on a vacation with State Senator Joseph Coniglio, the target of a federal criminal probe.  It took The Record a week to run an editorial on Molinelli, and they never actually covered it as a news story.

The Record's Herb Jackson has an interesting post on his blog: he notes that embattled U.S. Senator Larry Craig contributed $10,000 to Tom Kean, Jr.'s 2006 Senate campaign. Jackson notes that Kean, Jr. has $47,000 left in his federal campaign account -- enough to give Craig's money back. But then again, The Record endorsed Bob Menendez last year, and never pushed the Hudson County Democrat to return any campaign contributions he received from numerous tainted donors -- so maybe Kean shouldn't care what The Record says?

U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg's $1 million loan to his re-election campaign triggers a new law that will allow his potential Democratic primary rivals to up their maximum individual contributions from $2,300 per election to as much as $12,600, according to Herb Jackson's report in The Record. Republicans would be able to use the increased limits if Lautenberg transfers unused primary election funds into his general election account. This new law was witten in 2002, after New Jersey's Jon S. Corzine spent nearly $70 million to win a seat in the United States Senate.

The conventional wisdom is that Lautenberg wants a hefty warchest on hand to dissuade other Democrats -- many of whom swear they have no intention of running if Lautenberg does -- from challenging him for the 2008 Democratic nomination.

Capitolbeat, a national organization of state government reporters and editors, has awarded The Record's Herb Jackson top honors in the large newspaper commentary category for his columns on former Governor James E. McGreevey and Governor Jon Corzine. Jackson now covers Washington, D.C. for The Record.

The Association of Capitol Repoetrs and Editors gave Star-Ledger reporter Dunstan McNichol first place for his July 2005 story, "Chipping away the old block: State school project lays waste to Newark neighborhood," about the demolition of a neighborhood in anticipation of builing a new school that has not yet been built.

If you are an authentic political junkie, the type that can't get enough of politics -- real or fiction -- then you have done two things in the last fifteen hours: watched the premier of Commander-In-Chief on ABC and read Herb Jackson's column this morning in The Record.

The premise of the new White House drama (which was just okay, nothing special, if anyone really cares what this authentic junkie thought) is that a rather conservative President has a stroke and the people around him don't feel comfortable with the Vice President, a woman far to their left who got on the ticket to help them win a general election, moving into the Oval Office. When the President dies, some of his staff, cabinet and the next-in-the-line of succession Speaker of the House, push her to resign.

Jackson writes about the November 2005 referendum to create the Office of Lieutenant Governor, a legislative solution to New Jersey having two unelected Governors (maybe more, but John Bennett doesn't really count) over the past four years. Jackson: "The proposal's biggest departure from the federal model comes when a lieutenant governor steps up to fill a vacancy. Instead of serving the remainder of the governor's term, the lieutenant would serve only until the next November election, when voters would pick another ticket to serve for the remainder of the term. If the vacancy occurs within 60 days of a November election, the special election would not be until the following year, meaning the longest a lieutenant could serve as a replacement governor is 14 months.

"Some see this provision as the old-boy network being willing to support a woman or a minority on the ticket for show, as long as they could not be in power for too long. Architects of the proposal disagree angrily, saying special elections are common for many other public offices in the state," Jackson writes.

What Jackson is saying, likely with much accuracy, is that party leaders -- the guys who control the lines -- would not feel obliged to back the man or woman (the conventional wisdom is that the '09 gubernatorial nominees will want to balance their tickets with a woman or minority, or both) elected as Lieutenant Governor to be a heartbeat away from the nation's most powerful governorship. Unlike the United States Constitution, which provides for the Vice President to finish the term, the proposed amendment to the State Constitution -- arguably better than the current system -- still provides a loophole to the political elite.

And if you aren't a real junie, and don't care about Herb Jackson or Geena Davis, CLICK HERE.