Try to imagine what might happen if state Sen. and Union City Mayor Brian Stack became the chairman of the Hudson County Democratic Organization.
If you can’t, there are plenty of key people currently entrenched in Hudson County politics who can, and they are having fits over the possibility.
The HCDO is the heart and soul of the Democratic Party in Hudson County, and – although technically subject to a vote of elected committee people – in truth, most of power rests in the hands of the chairman, who serves often at the whim of the 12 municipal mayors. He often brokers political disputes between rivals. More importantly, the chairman often decides the political future of party candidates when he or she decides whether they will run on the official Democratic line.
In rare cases, a Democratic candidate might run in a primary against the HCDO-backed candidate and win, but in most cases, without HCDO support, hell would freeze over first.
The last candidate to defy the HCDO successfully was Brian Stack when he ran against West New York Mayor Sal Vega for state Senate three years ago. He won. But everybody who ran with Stack’s group in other districts lost.
Because Stack could not see eye to eye with the HCDO, he tried to start his own Democratic organization. It lasted approximately a year.
Now, he is being considered as a contender for chairmanship of the very organization he tried to destroy.
As chairman, Stack would be in an even better position to dismantle the old boys’ network that has operated the HCDO for decades, and the old boys’ network knows this very well and knows also that even as chairman, Stack would never be one of them.
As powerful a force as Stack is, he seems to have kept his distance from the HCDO social network, making a point of avoiding many of the smoke-filled back rooms where the HCDO makes it policy.
Many of the old-timers in the old boys’ network believe – perhaps correctly – that Stack will begin getting rid of the operatives whom he criticized while he was outside the organization. For this reason, some of the Old Guard are seeking other people to take the helm, such as former state Sen. Bernard Kenny or even County Administrator Tom DeGise.
So why are they considering Stack to begin with? There are reports that a higher authority, namely U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, is pushing that move.
Bypassing Stack – especially if it revives Kenny’s political career – threatens to open old wounds and start a new political civil war now that the county’s Democrats have gained a temporary peace.
Stack once believed that Kenny, along with then state Sen. and Bayonne Mayor Joe Doria and state Sen. and North Bergen Mayor Nicholas Sacco, tried to keep Stack out of the state Senate by legislating a no-dual job holding law. How angry will Stack get if he thinks the Democrats are trying to keep him from becoming HCDO Chairman by giving that seat to Kenny instead?
It pays to be a volunteer firefighter in Secaucus
Gauging from this week’s list of proposed promotions in the Secaucus Department of Public Works, it pays to be a volunteer firefighter – since it is clear that if you’re connected to that small group of people, you have every chance of getting a promotion.
Newly elected Mayor Michael Gonnelli, himself a volunteer Secaucus firefighter, came into office on Jan. 1 as a reformer, the head of the Take Back Secaucus movement. But Gonnelli didn’t start out that way. For decades, he was the key to keeping the Secaucus Democratic organization in power, someone the elected officials could count on to help generate good feelings among the voters on behalf of the existing administration. He seems to have become reformer only after he had a falling out with the Elwell administration and the other politicians. But many of the real issues that brought him to office were personal, not political.
Time, of course, will tell if he will live up to his reform credentials. But it is clear that his earliest moves to reward supporters are less in the interest of reform than in paying back political favors.
Fed’s methods on trial
The trial of Leona Beldini, former deputy mayor for Jersey City, has done little to enlighten the public about how corrupt Hudson County politicians are as it does to show to what depths a politically-connected federal prosecutor will go to make it seem that way.
Many people seem to forget the concept of entrapment, which is the act of a law enforcement agent inducing a person to commit an offense that the person would otherwise have been unlikely to commit.
In procuring convictions in the past, federal agents were generally required to show that someone had done illegal things in the past and then use a sting operation to show they still would.
But in charging dozens of political figures in the state, federal authorities took short cuts in what seems to be a hurry to get headlines to benefit Christopher Christie’s gubernatorial campaign.
In this case, a government informant who was in trouble with the feds was used by them to attempt to bribe various local officials regarding a phony development deal. Beldini was the first to go on trial last week.
Beldini’s court case is also a judgment on this prosecution. If she prevails in convincing a jury that she was set up by the feds, then others will have legitimate reasons to fight the charges brought against them.
Give Zimmer time
In Hoboken, the special election to fill Dawn Zimmer’s vacated council seat this coming November will be seen as a bellwether as to how well the reform candidates are doing in office. But Mayor Zimmer is suffering the same ill effect that President Barack Obama has. She is being blasted for doing the job she was elected to do, often forced to step back from campaign promises as she has learned the depth of problems her city faces. Instead of waiting a year to see how she handles it, opponents – much like the national Republicans – are closing in like sharks, making the best of a still unresolved situation for political gain.