Posted on 01/24/2003 11:16:46 AM PST by jmc813
Democrats allied with Governor McGreevey scuttled a landmark reform bill Thursday but in the process helped make a hero out of the reformer - an inexperienced Republican lawmaker by the name of Thomas H. Kean
The bill, which places new limits on the old political custom known as "pay to play,'' was summarily derailed by Assembly Speaker Albio Sires, D-West New York, who cut off all debate and ordered the measure back to committee without a vote.
For nearly 90 minutes, Sires stood at the speaker's podium, ignoring repeated requests from Kean and other Republicans to be heard.
Kean, appearing in his last session as an Assemblyman before being sworn in as a state senator later Thursday afternoon, walked out of the chamber after Sires brandished his letter of resignation and said, "You are no longer a member of this Assembly.''
"I've never seen anything this disgraceful,'' said Kean, who exited to the cheers and applause of his Republican colleagues, adulation usually reserved for retiring members or dignitaries, not freshmen with thin résumés. "All I can say is that I tried to do the right thing.''
The raucous Assembly session and the pay-to-play debate in general is again focusing attention on the fortunes of the Kean family, heirs of a New Jersey political dynasty rooted in the Colonial era.
Kean's aggressive sponsorship of reform legislation and his light-speed ascent to the Senate are viewed in Trenton as the coolly calculated prelude to a statewide political career. Observers in both parties said that Thursday's developments were not only an embarrassment to the McGreevey administration and Sires, but the potential stuff of political legend.
"What we've done today is get a lot closer to a Kean for Governor campaign,'' said Assemblyman Joseph V. Doria, a Democrat from Bayonne who left the Assembly chamber shaking his head.
Another influential McGreevey ally, New Jersey Sierra Club Director Jeff Tittel, said Kean's triumphant exit from the Assembly chamber could almost be seen as the opening salvo of the 2005 governor's race.
"2009 at the latest,'' Tittel said. "I think Speaker Sires showed bad manners and bad politics today. He essentially opened the door for Kean to be a hero and launch himself on a statewide platform as a true reform candidate.''
Kean's bill, which has already passed the Senate in a 35-to-1 vote, places new limits on the long-standing, and legal, political practice where elected leaders reward their political contributors with government contracts. Reformers say the practice is just another wasteful form of patronage.
The bill bans contributions to state candidates by companies with state contracts worth more than $17,500. It also significantly reduces the amount other contractors can contribute.
Later Thursday, Democratic leaders said they had blocked Kean's bill because it did not go far enough in limiting the influence of large donors.
They said they are following the governor's lead in calling for comprehensive pay-to-play reform that does not only cover state contracts, as does Kean's bill, but county and municipal contracts as well.
Assemblywoman Loretta Weinberg, D-Teaneck, co-sponsor of Kean's bill, said she will sponsor a new bill that will receive a hearing in the Housing and Local Government Committee.
"I promise it will not languish,'' she said.
Sires, who promised to bring the new bill to a vote by the end of June, called the Republican parliamentary theatrics on the Assembly floor "very well planned."
He said he had no regrets in muzzling Kean, but did invite him back to the lower house to make an official goodbye speech.
"There's no secret he has a bigger agenda," Sires said about Kean.
Kean bristles at the notion that he staged a showdown with the powerful Sires to advance his own political interests. He points out that his bill is co-sponsored by leading Democrats in both houses and enjoys overwhelming bi-partisan support.
It was Sires, he says, who used a last-minute parliamentary tactic to stymie a vote and send the bill back to committee, where it has already languished for 13 months.
"Twenty minutes before my resignation takes effect, Albio gives me a letter saying he is sending this thing back to committee,'' Kean said. "How can our response to something that is unprecedented and probably illegal be well planned out?"
As he prepared to be sworn in as a senator later Thursday, he added, "This was a truly bipartisan effort to do something good; isn't that what public service is all about?''
If there ever was anyone born to public service, it is Thomas H. Kean Jr.
His father, Thomas H. Kean Sr., was one of the most popular governors in modern New Jersey history. His grandfather, Robert Winthrop Kean, served the state as a congressman, and his great-great-uncle and great-grandfather were U.S. senators from New Jersey.
A distant cousin of Theodore Roosevelt and a direct descendant of William Livingston, New Jersey's first governor, Kean can also trace his lineage to Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch governor of New York.
In 2000, Kean was beaten in a four-way race for the Republican nomination in the 7th District. A year later, county committeemen elected him to replace Assemblyman Alan M. Augustine, who retired due to heath reasons.
When state Sen. Richard H. Bagger, R-Union, announced last month that he was quitting to devote more time to his private sector job, Kean quickly emerged as the consensus replacement.
For New Jersey's foundering Republican Party, humiliated in three successive statewide elections, the choice of a potential future leader was a no-brainer.
Carl Golden, a former press secretary for Kean's father and a longtime GOP strategist, said the son's rapid rise shows how desperately the party needs to fill its political bench.
"The party needs to start grooming people because there really is no one in the wings,'' Golden said.
Democratic leaders say that the Republicans are less interested in reform than in elevating the profile of a future GOP standard bearer.
Why, those Democrats are asking, didn't the Republicans make any serious attempt at campaign-finance reform when they controlled the Legislature and Governor's Office for most of the past decade? Kean first introduced his bill in December 2001, a month before McGreevey took office and the Democrats took control of the state Assembly.
Kean "was in the Legislature 23 months, and the issue was not advanced at all,'' said Joseph Roberts, D-Camden, the Assembly majority leader. "So this is much more about partisan advantage and grandstanding than it is about any commitment to campaign finance reform.''
About an hour after marching out of the Assembly, Kean was sworn in as senator while his father stood beside him, beaming. In a brief speech, the younger Kean expressed thanks for being allowed to speak.
"After what I just went through, this is a relief,'' he said.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.