Mila Jasey

ORANGE - Newark Mayor Cory Booker todayNewark Mayor Cory Booker lent his public support to the mayoral candidacy of Eldridge Hawkins, Jr.

"I know what it takes to restore hope and a new direction to a city in crisis," Booker wrote in a message to Orange voters that appeared on Hawkins campaign mailers throughout the Essex County city on the eve of the last weekend before Election Day.

"Eldridge Hawkins has the competence, good ideas and determination to create a bright future for Orange," Booker wrote of the 28-year old West Orange police officer.

Senate President Richard Codey at the Wilshire Grand Hotel todayAfter getting one question cleared up in the affirmative with Sen. Barack Obama, Senate President and former Governor Richard Codey today officially endorsed Obama for president at a press conference in his hometown of West Orange.

"What’s the skinny on the fact that you’re part Irish?" Codey said he asked Obama in a 10 minute conversation with the presidential candidate this morning, six days before the Feb. 5 primary.

"I am," Obama told him.

"Is that on your father’s side?" Codey cracked.

"It’s O’bama," Senator Loretta Weinberg informed the Senate President.

Sandra Bolden Cunningham won a Special Election Convention tonight to replace Joseph Doria in State Senate.  Doria resigned to become Acting Commissioner of Community Affairs.

Cunningham will fill the remaining three months of Doria's term.

Mila Jasey wouldn't say much in her first comments as an Assemblywoman-elect; she wouldn't even commit to backing Joe Roberts for Speaker next year.
Mila M. Jasey won a Special Election Convention to replace Mims Hackett in the State Assembly tonight, and promptly took the fifth.

"No comment," she said, when asked if Hackett, who was arrested earlier this month on bribery charges, should resign his post as Mayor of Orange.

What about Gov. Jon Corzine? Should he release his email correspondence with his former girlfriend, CWA President Carla Katz?

"No comment," Jasey said. "That wouldn’t be appropriate for me to comment on."

And would she support Joe Roberts for another term as Assembly Speaker? Again, Jasey had no comment.

Mark Meyerowitz now faces Mila Jasey in the 27th district Assembly raceFor about two days, 27th district Republican Assembly candidate Mark Meyerowitz thought that he might just be able to pull it off – that he could become the first Republican legislator elected out of West Orange since 1969.

The odds were stacked against Meyerowitz, a 52-year-old financial advisor with barely any political experience, from the beginning. He was running against two entrenched Democratic Assembly opponents – Mims Hackett, Jr. and John McKeon -- in a district represented in the Senate by Richard J. Codey, the most popular politician in the state.

The major players in Essex County have thrown their support behind Mila Jasey to take over Mims Hackett’s spot on the ballot.

Jasey, a South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education member, has won the support of Senate President Richard Codey, Assemblyman John McKeon, County Executive Joe DiVincenzo and Essex County Democratic Chairman Phil Thigpen.

That all but assures her the nod from the Essex County Democratic Committee, who will vote on a ballot replacement on Wednesday.