Frederick Scalera

Most incumbents are favored to win re-election in the 2009 State Assembly elections, which bodes well for Speaker Joe Roberts’ re-election prospects. At the most, ten seats are in play – eight Democrats and two Republicans – and it will take some recruitment homeruns to substantially alter the political playing field next year. For the Republicans to win control of the Assembly, they would have to oust incumbents in Districts 1, 7, 14 and 36 – these eight seats would mean a split 40-40 Assembly – and knock out one incumbent from the safe list.

Democrats Nelson Albano and Matthew Milam are slightly more vulnerable in the first district because State Sen. Jeff Van Drew won’t be on the ballot. But the absence of State Sens. Diane Allen and Bill Baroni, who have not had coattails in the past, makes incumbent Democratic Assembly members even safer. In District 36, where Democrats Frederick Scalera and Gary Schaer won surprisingly close re-election bids last year – Republicans could have an opportunity because there will be no Democrats from the Bergen County portion of the district on the ballot.

A town of 27,362 people in northeastern Essex County, Nutley has a long tradition of clout and influence in state and county politics -- largely through power of a bi-partisan local political machine run for more than thirty years by Frank Orechio, who leveraged a chain of weekly newspapers in Nutley, Belleville, Bloomfield and Glen Ridge to help deliver votes to the candidates of his choice. Critics had long complained that the Orechio media empire -- for a time in the 1970's and 1980's it included a cable television station -- was a blatant conflict of interest because of the positions the Orechio family held at different levels of government.

Four Democratic Assembly seats not expected to be in play turned out to be especially close, including Linda Stender, who won re-election by about the same number of votes Mike Ferguson did in his congressional race against her last year.

Stender defeated Republican Robert Gatto, who spent about $100 and mounted no real campaign, by just 3,327 votes in the 22nd district.  Her running mate, Gerald Green, defeated Bryan Des Roschers by just 3,260 votes.  Gatto and Des Roschers have both lost bids for municipal office.

In the 36th district, Freshman Democratic Assemblyman Gary Schaer, the Passaic City Council President, won by just 2,370 votes over Republican Don Diorio and by only 2,474 votes over Republican Carmen Pio Costa. Democratic Assemblyman Frederick Scalera ran 886 votes ahead of Schaer. 

No matter who wins the race for State Senate and Assembly in District 36, Stephen Borg will be on the winning side: he is the Publisher of the Herald News, and the Publisher of The Record. The Herald News endorsed the re-election of Democratic incumbents Paul Sarlo, Gary Schaer and Frederick Scalera; The Record endorsed the three Republican challengers.

The Record has endorsed Republican Mike Guarino for State Senate in the 36th district against Paul Sarlo, and Republicans Carmen Pio Costa and Don Diorio for Assembly against Gary Schaer and Frederick Scalera.  READ

The budget deal between Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts and Governor Jon Corzine could potentially exempt eight Democratic legislators in the lower house who are anxious to avoid a vote supporting a sales tax increase. Jefferson Van Drew and Nelson Albano in the first district, James Whelan in the second, Michael Panter in the twelfth, and Linda Greenstein in the fourteenth -- all Democrats with potentially competitive races for re-election next year -- appear to be the leading contenders for the first five slots. The sixth pass will probably go to Linda Stender, a Union County Democrat who is running for Congress this year against Republican Michael Ferguson. Democratic sources say that John Burzichelli and Douglas Fisher in the third, Paul Moriarty and David Mayer in the fourth, and Frederick Scalera and Gary Schaer in the 36th will likely compete for the last two slots.

Editor's Note: Schaer says that he and Scalera plan to vote for the budget and have "never asked" for a pass.

Lyndhurst Mayor Richard DiLascio is considering a bid for State Senate against Democratic incumbent Paul Sarlo in 2007, several South Bergen GOP leaders say. DiLascio was elected Mayor of Lyndhurst in 2005, heading a slate of local candidates that ousted longtime Mayor James Guida. Running with Assembly Minority Leader Paul DiGaetano, he lost a 2003 Assembly race to Democrat Frederick Scalera by 1,302 votes, and won 36% of the vote in a 1997 Republican primary against incumbent State Senator John Scott.