Alex DeCroce

McCain State Chair Bill Baroni, right, with Sen. Leonard Lance on Wednesday in Woodbridge.
WOODBRIDGE - The McCain campaign opened up its New Jersey/New York regional headquarters here in the heart of hail fellow blue collar country on New Brunswick Avenue.

"New Jersey is McCain country," declared New Jersey State Campaign Chairman Bill Baroni, flanked by fellow Republicans, including Sen. Thomas Kean, Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce, state Sen. Kevin O’Toole, state Sen. Leonard Lance, Burlington County Republican Chairman Bill Layton, Bergen County Clerk Kathleen Donovan, Morris County Sheriff Ed Rochford, and Ed Cox, chair of the New York McCain campaign, among others.

"We are here, we’re campaigning, we’re competing, we’re building a grassroots organization, we’re opening it (campaign headquarters) in the heart of Reagan Democratic country," said Baroni, who also at least once invoked what New Jersey Republicans call the "Baroni model," or hardcore shoe leather-style campaigning.

As he stood with futility against a bill he believes would ravage his 39th GOP Assemblyman Vince PolistinaLegislative District, Assemblyman John Rooney took little joy in noting a personal milestone.

For while 2008 marks the Bergen County Republican’s 25th anniversary as an assemblyman, it is also the low point of his legislative career.

"My towns got destroyed last night," said Rooney, a day after the majority Democrats passed a $32.9 billion budget, which includes 25% cuts in aid to all of the 28 municipalities in Rooney’s district, and eliminations of property tax rebates for residents in the $150,000 to $250,000 income range.

Monday also brought the Democrats’ successful if ignominious - by Rooney’s reckoning - passage of a bill requiring the construction of affordable housing in affluent towns.

Assemblyman Joseph Cryan, state chairman of the DeAssemblyman Joseph Cryanmocratic Party, today derided the reaction of Republican leaders to Gov. Jon Corzine's budget as "all over the map."

"Too many of the Republicans are resorting to the political rhetoric of the past about budget cuts but they want  to exempt their own pet projects," said Cryan in a press release. "They aren't just contradicting each other, they are contradicting themselves. Their budget  numbers don't add up and their ideas don't add  up."

The governor described his budget as a "turning point"  away from the irresponsible practices of the past. "But the Republicans' want to do a u-turn back to the same politics of the past," Cryan said.

Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce today issued a release criticizing Gov. Jon Corzine's methods of selling his plan to increase tolls, likening them to a "political blackmail plot." 

"Corzine’s claim yesterday that property tax rebates and tax relief could be in danger unless his 800% toll hike and nearly $40 billion borrowing scheme is approved is tantamount to political extortion," DeCroce said.

Freshman Assemblyman Ruben Ramos today walked in Gov. Jon Corzine's entourage with fellow freshman Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande.Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts today called on his fellow lawmakers to be bold and to focus on the big issues: ethics, affordable housing, healthcare and property tax reform.

"Our obligation is not to be a rubber stamp," Roberts told a group of legislators that included 25 new assembly people, or the largest number of freshmen since the Florio tax backlash of 1992. 

Speaking in the War Memorial shortly after helping to swear-in the other 79 assembly people and then being sworn into office himself, 20-year veteran Roberts urged the Assembly to work hard and bring honor to the State of New Jersey.

Although he and Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce complimented each other and committed themselves to bipartisanship, the latter didn’t clap when Roberts boasted about providing the largest property relief tax package in state history in 2007.

The wife of Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce has joined the Mitt Romney for President camp, according to State Sen. Joseph Kyrillos, the state's New Jersey chairman for Romney's campaign.

BettyLou DeCroce's politically prominent husband supports former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for president.

Remember all those ethics complaints during the campaigns?  Wonder what happens to them?

We’ll see tomorrow, when the Joint Legislative Committee on Ethical Standards meets to rule on the five complaints that have been filed since the committee last met.  But if history is any guide, they’ll mostly be dismissed. 

While legislators who sit on the committee say that complaints occasionally have at least some level of validity, some say they’re filed more to get a headline in the heat of a campaign rather than pointing out a real, troubling ethical infraction.  They also say they’ve noticed it happening more often in recently, with candidates taking advantage of a committee – one with a reputation for being toothless and ineffective -- for their political ends.   

Indeed, 2007 was the year of the ethics complaint, with 10 filed so far- the most of any year on record, going back to 1972.  Five have been settled, all of which were dismissed.

There is no shortage of people whose political careers will be affected by the outcome of tomorrow’s General Election, where voters will cast ballots for forty State Senate seats, eight Assembly seats, two County Executive posts, control of county governments in Atlantic and Monmouth, and key mayoral races.

This is PoliticsNJ.com’s list of the Top Twenty Stakeholders in the 2007 General Election.

On information supplied by a mole in the District 8 office of former Republican Assemblyman Francis Bodine, Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce today filed Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroceethics complaints against Democrats running in the 1st, 2nd and 8th districts, charging them with failing to keep their political campaigns from spilling over into their district offices.

According to DeCroce, the legislative campaigns of senate candidates Assemblyman Jim Whelan, Assemblyman Jeff Van Drew and Bodine "used state resources to further their campaign activities or the campaign activities of their running mates," a misuse of public resources that violates conflicts of interest law and the legislative code of ethics and rules, DeCroce said.

The minority leader filed the complaint with Judge Herbert S. Friend, vice chair/acting chair of the state Joint Committee on Ethics, after a Bodine 8th District office staffer told Republicans that he collected tax rebate mail pieces at Bodine’s district office, which he then gave to Bodine’s campaign spokesman Peter Clerkin for use in the candidate’s state Senate race.

New Jersey Republicans say they’re offering voters a “Choice for Change” in this year’s election, but Senate President Richard Codey said that they’re stuck in 1991.

The Republicans today outlined a platform that they hope will propel them to legislative majorities come November.  If a Republican majority is elected, the party will pledge to cut $1 billion from the state budget, make it easier to recall elected officials and oppose any raise in taxes and toughen anti-corruption measures.