Lonegan leads fight against gas tax hike -- and possibly prepares for '05 gubernatorial bid
By STEVE KORNACKI
PoliticsNJ.com
December 1 - As Democrats and Republicans in Trenton decide whether they want to take up the hot potato issue of a gas tax\ increase during the lame duck legislative session, one Republican mayor is seeking to turn the matter into a litmus test for conservatives.
Steven Lonegan, who was just elected to his third term as mayor of the Bergen County town of Bogota, launched a web site -- nogastaxhike.com -- several weeks ago to combat the effort to raise the tax.
The site, according to Lonegan, has attracted more than 20,000 hits and enticed nearly 10,000 people to sign an on-line petition opposing a hike. There is also a mechanism that allows those logging on to send messages to their legislators.
Blocking a gas tax hike is a way for Republicans to show they're serious about looking out for taxpayers, Lonegan said.
"If I can just get Republicans to stick together for a change instead of giving Jim McGreevey his 21st vote, then maybe Republicans can start to show what they're made of," he stated.
A blue-ribbon panel recently recommended more than doubling the current 10.5 cent per gallon tax to prop up the state's debt-ridden Transportation Trust Fund.
Both parties were quiet about the issue during this fall's legislative campaign, fueling speculation that key legislators in both parties had conspired to take up the matter after the election -- when the political fallout would be less severe.
Lonegan, a longtime critic of the state's GOP leadership who called for the ouster of Republican State Chairman Joseph M. Kyrillos, Jr. last month, said he decided to take up the cause because of his sense that Republican legislators were prepared to cut deals to back the hike.
"It's time for the Republican Party to get a backbone, some principles, and to give New Jersey an alternative to big government," Lonegan said.
"If this isn't an issue that Republicans should be united against, I don't know what is," he added.
As of Monday, the legislature had yet to take up the gas tax hike, and Lonegan said the chance that it won't be addressed during the rest of the lame duck session "is a hell of a lot better than it was two weeks ago," when he launched his crusade.
"We have a heck of a lot better chance of beating this in the spring than we do in the lame duck, with all the deal-making that goes on, " he said.
Lonegan said he was heartened to hear incoming Senate Minority Leader Leonard Lance (R-Clinton) say last week that he is opposed to the hike, but noted that he had only been contacted by one GOP legislator -- Assemblyman Michael Doherty (R-Oxford) -- offering to help the anti-tax campaign.
Failure to unite in opposition to a hike will hurt the state's GOP leadership among its base, predicted Lonegan.
"They will have a real problem," he said. "They will have lost even more of their base and confidence in their sense of principle."
While his web site's focus is the gas tax issue, in some ways the site reads like a piece of campaign literature.
Lonegan's name is featured prominently, along with a lengthy biography that amounts to a recitation of the mayor's credentials as a potential statewide GOP candidate.
After touting his record in Bogota, a town of about 8,000 not far from the George Washington Bridge, the site declares: "Lonegan's conservative record is a winner in this town that voted 3-2 for both Al Gore and Jim McGreevey."
Indeed, Lonegan has been mentioned by some conservatives as a possible gubernatorial candidate in 2005.
"I'm not going to close the door on it," Lonegan said of a run for governor. "But that's not why I'm doing this [web site]. That's not the plan."
Still, the mayor was more than ready to offer a blunt critique his party's direction.
"I'm going to have to further distance myself from Republican leaders here," he said. "There's only one party in Trenton and it's the party of big spending."
Lonegan cited a number of instances in the last two years in which he feels the GOP unnecessarily compromised with Democrats. Most notable, he said, was the party's willingness to give Governor McGreevey the 21st vote for his first two budgets and the GOP's unwillingness to oppose the reappointment of state Supreme Court Chief Justice Deborah Poritz.
"They're not giving the people of New Jersey an alternative," Lonegan said of the state GOP. "If it's not going to come from the leadership, it's going to come from the grass roots, and that's what this web site is trying to do."
Lonegan was one of Bret D. Schundler's earliest backers in the 2001 gubernatorial campaign.
But he and Schundler have had a falling-out, and the emergence of Lonegan -- who has lost bids for Congress, State Senate and Bergen GOP Chairman -- as a prospective candidate for governor could threaten Schundler's strategy as he himself prepares for a possible '05 bid.
The conventional wisdom has been that Schundler would run as the most conservative candidate in what is shaping up as a crowded field. With his opponents splitting the moderate vote, the thinking goes, Schundler would be poised to win the GOP nomination by cornering the market on conservatives.
But there have been signs that Schundler may have alienated some of his conservative base as he has sought to make himself more palatable to the GOP mainstream.
This spring, Schundler refused to take sides in a number of competitive Republican legislative primaries, angering some on the right, including Lonegan.
Lonegan said Schundler has been just as quiet on the gas tax issue.
"Bret is shell-shocked from his loss and he's afraid to do anything that's too 'line in the sand' because he could get labeled a right-wing Republican, " he theorized.
With his small base in Bogota and lack of statewide name recognition, Lonegan is seen as a longshot to win the Republican nomination, but many GOP moderates hope he will get in the race, believing Lonegan's presence would hurt Schundler.
David Rebovich, the director of Rider University's Institute for New Jersey Politics, said he doubts Lonegan could win a GOP primary but that, through his ant-gas tax campaign, the mayor might be able to position himself as a statewide leader of the party's conservatives.
"Conservatives are looking for tangible scores, an example of where they or one of their kind can have an impact on public policy," Rebovich said. "And if he can score on this gas tax issue, that could excite some conservatives who might feel somewhat boxed into a corner right now."
Steve Kornacki can be reached at kornackinj@aol.com