http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/20/the-ugly-truth-about-cory-booker-new-jersey-s-golden-boy.html
Yet Booker is actually having to put up a fight to be more than just a congressional seat-warmer.
The alleged FBI and U.S. Attorney investigations into the Newark Watershed may have something to do with that. Months after he first entered the Senate, the New Jersey comptroller alleged that under Booker’s watch—or, more likely, because he was not watching—corruption ran rampant at a publicly funded water-treatment and reservoir-management agency, where Booker’s former law partner served as counsel.
And speaking of his former law career: Despite having resigned from his law firm once entering the mayor’s office, Booker received annual payments until 2011, during which time the firm was profiting handsomely off of Brick City. That would be the Brick City that Booker professed to love with the fire of a thousand suns, but did little to fundamentally change. Murder, violent crime, unemployment, and taxes all rose dramatically under his stewardship.
All the while, from 2006 to 2011, Booker was still receiving annual payments, which totaled close to $700,000, from his former law firm—Trenk, DiPasquale, Webster—from which he had resigned once elected mayor to avoid “the appearance of impropriety.” Booker’s campaign spokeswoman, Silvia Alvarez, told me: “He was paid out by the firm as part of his separation agreement for work he performed before he became mayor.”
OK, sure, but while Booker was profiting from the firm, they were profiting from Newark: over $2 million in work for Newark’s Housing Authority, the Watershed Conservation Development Corporation, and a wastewater agency. “That’s almost like Sharpe James-type shit,” one New Jersey Democratic operative offered.
sorry for bold... my mistake
Why Do Liberals Hate Cory Booker?
The mayor of Newark is a rising Democratic star with progressive positions on most issues. So why are so many on the left so critical?
Booker has, it is true, raised plenty of money from Wall Street over the years. Of the $8.6 million he’s raised for his Senate campaign, $531,000 came from the financial industry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
This is hardly unique, even for a Democrat, and especially for a Democrat from New Jersey, a solidly blue state where many financial firms are headquartered. The two sitting members of Congress against whom Booker ran in the primary have both taken hundreds of thousands in financial-industry donations over the years. Frank Lautenberg, the late Democratic senator Booker is aiming to replace, raised $2 million of his $9 million campaign war chest in 2008 from the industry. Booker’s campaign has also drawn $700,000 in donations from Silicon Valley, according to the New York Times. The ties go beyond campaign support: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has donated $100 million to improve Newark’s schools, while various tech bigwigs have invested in Booker’s dubious tech startup.
The startup helped make Booker a millionaire; he has also made over $1 million for speaking appearances.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/08/why-do-liberals-hate-cory-booker/278992/