Gubernatorial Candidates Former JC mayor faces off against current Woodbridge mayor

Tom Jennemann

Reporter staff writer

With a lead in the polls that has hovered between 10 and 20 percent over the last couple of months, Woodbridge Mayor Jim McGreevey’s gubernatorial campaign is comparable to a football quarterback nursing a fourth quarter lead in the big game. Tightly scripted, cautious and carefully orchestrated, the 44-year-old Democrat has spent the summer and fall promoting an agenda of improving schools, bettering public safety, focusing on the environment, and reforming auto insurance, health care and high property taxes – all the while rolling out an impressive list of endorsements from public interest groups.

McGreevey has been the mayor of Woodbridge since 1992 and served in the State Assembly in 1990 and 1991 and in the State Senate from 1994 to 1997. He ran for the governor’s seat in 1997 and only lost by 27,000 votes to Christie Todd Whitman.

In addition to his experience as a state legislator and running a major municipality, McGreevey has served as a former Middlesex County assistant prosecutor, executive director of the State Parole Board, and in a top management position for the pharmaceutical company Merck.

His views are in sharp contrast to his Republican opponent, former Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler, on abortion, gun control and the fate of the Garden State parkway tolls. McGreevey is pro-choice and is against any bill that would permit individuals to carry concealed weapons. One of Schundler’s biggest and most influential supporters is the National Riffle Association and he would support the right of a person to carry a concealed weapon with proper licensing.

While Schundler is for eliminating the tolls, McGreevey would keep them but would refinance state debt and merge the Atlantic City Expressway, Turnpike, and Garden State Parkway authorities for cost savings.

McGreevey has also not ruled out the possibility for a future state tax increase. In a recent debate, he said that in light of the recent tragedies, “I would not take such a pledge in case there was an extreme emergency.”

Schundler has promised categorically that if elected he would not raise taxes. “If you want higher taxes, you should vote for [McGreevey]; if you want less taxes you should vote for me,” he said during an Oct. 10 debate in Newark. (McGreevey was part of the Democratic majority in the state legislature in 1990 that voted for a $2.8 billion increase in state income, sales, alcohol, and tobacco taxes after Gov. Jim Florio took office. Florio said that he had inherited a deficit. McGreevey also raised municipal property taxes when he became mayor of Woodbridge in 1992. McGreevey said that the previous mayor, whom he had ousted, had cut taxes but not expenditures to try to win the election.)

In the area of public safety, McGreevey favors a law to ban racial profiling. While McGreevey was mayor of Woodbridge, the township attained national accreditation of the police department – one of only six municipalities in the state to do so. He cut overall crime by nearly 40 percent since 1991, with a seven percent reduction in violent crimes last year.

While in the legislature, he co-sponsored the law that requires persons convicted of serious crimes to serve at least 85 percent of their sentence. He also co-sponsored the “three strikes” law, imposing mandatory life sentences after three violent convictions. With U.S. Rep. Bob Menendez, he co-sponsored the Ethnic Intimidation Act, which increased penalties for hate crimes.

Because of his platform on crime, the blessing of the 33,000-member State Policemen’s Benevolent Association came just a month after the state’s 16,000-member Fraternal Order of Police endorsed McGreevey. Other endorsements from public safety groups came from the Port Authority Police Benevolent Association and the state’s two largest firefighter groups; the New Jersey Fireman’s Benevolent Association and the Professional Firefighters Association of New Jersey.

In the schools, McGreevey has pledged to make literacy a top priority, with every third grader reading at or above grade level. He wants to raise standards for new teachers and require competency in the subject they teach.

He also backs the state’s ambitious school construction program, but recently pledged not to spend more then the $8.6 billion already committed if elected.

Schundler has denounced the program, saying that voters should not have approved any deal involving so much debt. He favors the aggressive support of charter and private schools in the form giving tax credits to encourage parents to transfer their children to private schools and greatly expanding the number of charter schools throughout the state. Schundler believes that money would be better spent on vouchers and school choice than fixing up older school buildings.

In the area of health care, McGreevey was appointed to the National Cancer Advisory Board by President Bill Clinton and served as chair of the U.S. Conference of Mayors Subcommittee on Health Insurance. He was a member of the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Commission on health care cost. While in the legislature, he wrote a law that requires health insurance companies to cover the cost of mammograms, and he co-sponsored a law that requires insurers to pay for inpatient care after breast cancer surgery.

For the environment he sponsored the Pollution Prevention Act, which in the next decade will reduce the levels of emissions in new cars by 50 percent. And at the end of August the 23,000-member New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club came out for McGreevey. “[McGreevey] has a clear vision for the state of New Jersey when it comes to protecting and cleaning up our environment and will do far more to curb sprawl and pollution than his Republican opponent,” said Jeff Tittel, head the New Jersey Sierra Club, on August 20.

The Schundler camp has cited the number of McGreevey’s endorsements as proof that McGreevey is cozy with the same special interests that have influenced Trenton politics for years.

On the issue of property taxes, McGreevey says he wants to expand the property tax freeze to include more senior citizens, and to return a portion of state tax revenue directly to property taxpayers.

He wants to give faster tax rebates by making the rebates are an automatic check-off on the state income taxes. He says he would like to cap NJ Saver property tax rebates for those earning more than $200,000 and dedicate the $45 million annual savings to reducing the state’s debt.

To reform auto insurance, he proposes zero tolerance on fraud by auto shops, drivers, and lawyers, as well as increased penalties for bad drivers. He also wants to require companies to notify all of their customers when they are seeking a rate hike, so consumers can shop around before the hikes hit.

Prescott Tolk

Reporter staff writer

With a couple of weeks remaining until Election Day, Republican candidate Bret Schundler faces an uphill battle as he finds himself, at last count, 17 points behind Democratic rival James McGreevey. But Schundler’s entire political career has been based on beating the odds and upsetting polls.

The political maverick managed to overcome the Democratic stronghold on Jersey City twice. And this year, he then went on to beat Bob Franks, the frontrunner for the Republican Party’s gubernatorial candidate, in the primary election despite the fact that he touted some right-wing views that were considered too extreme for the moderate voters of New Jersey.

Those views have included his anti-abortion stance and early pronouncements about the citizens’ right to carry a concealed weapon. Since then, he has promised not to change the existing New Jersey gun laws, and his stance on abortion has been buried under this election year’s primary focus: taxes and education.

Before entering Jersey City politics in 1993, Schundler worked in the financial sector and amassed a fortune as a financial consultant with Salomon Brothers and C. J. Lawrence. Schundler grew up in central New Jersey, studied at the University of Haifa in Israel and graduated from Harvard University with honors. In 1993, an opportunity to run for mayor of Jersey City in a special election arose when then-mayor Gerald McCann’s conviction on corruption charges left the position open and led to a special election.

Before Schundler, the last mayor of Jersey City to win on the GOP ticket held office in World War I. As a host of Democratic candidates entered the election, Schundler, a virtual unknown at the time, managed to capture the seat, taking Hudson County’s Democratic machine by surprise. But Schundler proved that it was no fluke four years later when he was re-elected with 69 percent of the vote, the first mayor of Jersey City to be re-elected in 30 years.

During his two terms, Schundler oversaw unprecedented economic growth in Jersey City. The waterfront blossomed into a reflection of Wall Street, boasting skyscrapers, residential high rises, and commercial development. Of course, this was during the unprecedented period of American economic growth that has given the last decade of the millennium immediate legendary status.

The new development came at a price, however. Offering payment-in-lieu-of-taxes, or PILOTs, Schundler was able to attract corporate interest through tax breaks. Critics of his administration have argued that corporate interests overrode the interests of the existing Jersey City community by allowing companies to pay a fixed sum rather than be subject to tax increases like the rest of the homeowners.

The Republican poster boy could not boast of financial stability in Jersey City indefinitely. During the last two years of his term, wide budget gaps yawned open, and political opponents in state government said that tricky budget maneuvering had led to the holes.

For Schundler, PILOTs were the primary way to plug holes in the municipal budget. He continues to support his decisions and upholds his Jersey City record as a record of accomplishment. Fiscally speaking, critics denounced Schundler for prompting Jersey City’s state-appointed nickname as a “distressed city” in 2000. As a result, all of the City’s budgetary matters must be approved by the state.

According to Tom Gallagher, a spokesperson for Schundler, the label was something that the state gave cities to whom it was giving aid. He said that it was a new name to describe a state-aid program that was in existence before Schundler came to office.

Whether people agree with his methods or not, Schundler proudly touts his Jersey City record as an example of what he would like to do for the state. During a recent campaign tour of Jersey City, he told fellow Republicans running for seats in the assembly that cities like Patterson and Camden should modeled after Jersey City so that they can attract corporate interests and retain the existing community.

If elected governor, Schundler said, he will put a moratorium on all new state taxes. Following the ideology behind the $1.3 billion Bush tax cut, Schundler has pledged to significantly cut state taxes. For example, he has promised to eliminate 50 percent of school taxes for all senior citizens in New Jersey and provide more tax exemptions for veterans.

“Every year the income tax base, corporate tax base, and sales tax base grows,” Gallagher said, explaining how the state could cut taxes without losing revenue. “So you do have an expanding base of revenue. Instead of spending that revenue on new government programs, use it to decrease tax burden.”

Trying to build support for his tax-cut agenda, Schundler’s camp has repeatedly pointed a finger at McGreevey for casting the deciding vote for former Gov. Jim Florio’s $2.8 billion tax hike in 1990. In a written statement, Schundler’s Campaign Manager Bill Pascoe wrote, “When the Florio-McGreevey tax hike passed, New Jersey lost 250,000 jobs.”

Another tax-cut measure within the Schundler platform involves removing tolls on the Garden State Parkway in nine months. However, those tolls bring in $135 million of revenue for the state annually. In a recent debate, McGreevey said that Schundler’s tax-cut proposals and plans to remove Parkway tolls would strip the state of $3 billion in revenue.

In order to compensate for the lost revenue, Schundler has turned to his background in the financial sector as a guide for conducting business. According to Gallagher, the traditional methods that the government uses to conduct business often lead to unnecessary inflationary costs. For instance, he said the average school takes five years to build at a cost of $40 million. Pointing to Jersey City’s Golden Door Charter School, Gallagher said it cost less than half of that to build it in only 15 months. “Governments in general are designed to be more time-consuming and more expensive,” Gallagher said. “Scrap those models and deliver models that work. Models used in the private sector.”

Schundler is proud of the Golden Door Charter School, and has repeatedly said that he wants public schools to work in the same fashion, blaming the current system for spending its dollars outside the classroom. Under Schundler’s plan, parents would have a variety of choices of where to send their children to school – public school, charter school, or parochial school. Charter schools are parent- or community-founded free public schools.

While Jim McGreevey encourages rehabilitation of public schools, Schundler wants to aggressively support charter and private schools by giving tax credits to encourage parents to transfer their children to private schools and greatly expanding the number of charter schools throughout the state. Schundler believes that money would be better spent on vouchers and school choice than fixing up older school buildings. In addition, Schundler wants to set up corporate scholarship funds that are exempt from state taxes, so low- to moderate-income children have an opportunity to attend parochial schools.

Al Sullivan

While the 2001 gubernatorial election has been touted as a battle between mayors Jim McGreevey and Bret Schundler, voters do have other choices.

Although not as well known as the two top contenders, seven other candidates are vying for the governor’s seat.

Independent Bill Schluter of Pennington currently serves as the assemblyman for the 23rd District (Warren County and parts of Hunterdon County). He served as a state senator from 1972 to 1974 and held several terms in the state assembly. He has served on the Community and Urban Affairs and Economic Growth committees, as well as on the Joint Committee on Ethical Standards. He also chaired the Legislative Oversight Committee.

Although his name may be similar to Mayor Schundler’s, Schluter has been very critical of the former Jersey City Mayor’s policies, claiming the Republican nominee has sought to block state legislation that would help other cities like Newark. Schluter supports tax reform and campaign finance limitations and opposes racial profiling.

Michael W. Koontz of New Milford also is running as an independent. In 1992, he was a vice presidential candidate on the United We Stand ticket, and has since run for state senate in 1997, the House of Representatives in 1998, and the state Assembly in 1999.

Jerry L. Coleman of Lawrenceville is running for governor as the state Green Party candidate. He previously served as fiscal officer for Union County and is founder of the Union County Fair Housing Council. He has served as a councilman in Rahway as well as on the Planning Board and Board of Adjustment. Last year, he ran for the House of Representatives. Coleman is seeking state funding for education, job training, and healthcare facilities, and seeks tax stabilization, affordable mortgage rates and auto insurance reform. He also wants to put an end to racial profiling.

Constantino Rozzo of Vineland is the candidate of the Socialist Party USA. He has been a member of several labor organizations and ran for the House of Representatives last year. In an e-mail response to questions sent to most of the candidates, Rozzo said he would seek a reform of the way the state goes about doing business.

“We need to reform the entire system,” he said. “The system now plays into the hands of the privileged few.”

His campaign would seek cheaper insurance, property tax relief and the elimination of road tolls. He would also like to see a graduated progressive tax. But he said providing affordable healthcare may be the biggest issue of the campaign.

Kari Sachs of Newark is running on the Socialist Workers Party. She has also run for several national offices over the last few years. She said her campaign would seek to “replace the capitalist government with one of workers and farmers.”

“We can and need to follow the example of workers and farmers in Cuba, who threw out a repressive dictatorship in 1959, established a government of their own, and went onto replace the capitalist system,” she said.

Libertarian candidate for Governor Mark Edgerton of Hopatcong has previously served as a delegate to the 1998 National Libertarian Convention. He has sharply criticized the national war against drugs as a waste of money and resources, and blamed the strict anti-drug laws for separating families, violating people’s rights and racial profiling. He is in favor of doing away with highway tolls and forcing government to economize in order to lower taxes.

“The cost of government services should be borne by those benefiting from them,” he said.

George Watson of Jackson is running as a Free New Jersey candidate, but may well be the least accessible of all candidates, having no listed phone number nor published position as to what he will do if elected.