Susan Bass Levin

Susan Bass Levin, the former Cherry Hill Mayor and state Community Affairs Commissioner, became the Acting Executive Director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey – the first woman and the first New Jerseyan to run the powerful bi-state agency.   She will hold the post until the authority picks a replacement for Anthony Shorris.  Traditionally, New Jersey gets the Port Authority chairmanship and New York gets the Executive Director post, which means that the top job now goes to Gov. David Paterson.

James Saxton parlayed a series of narrow victories and political opportunities into a successful career in New Jersey politics that spanned four decades.

Saxton was the 32-year-old Bordentown Republican Municipal Chairman in 1975 when he made his first run for the Legislature, challenging Democratic Assemblyman John Sweeney in a politically competitive district that included parts of Burlington, Ocean, Monmouth and Mercer counties. Sweeney, who later became Chief Counsel to Governor James Florio and is now a Superior Court Judge,  had been elected in the 1973 Democratic landslide, ousting GOP incumbent Kenneth Wilkie.  Saxton ousted Sweeney by 3,018 votes - 24,831 to 21,813.  He had no trouble holding the seat in 1977 and 1979.

With apologies to Don Henley, I don’t make my living off the evening news.

I really do want to know what’s going on.

The folks at PoliticsNJ.com feel the same way. So they asked me to blog about political reporting, with an emphasis on potential biases by the media, actual conflicts, factual errors, and shortcomings in news stories.

‘Cause sometimes when it’s said and done the press hasn’t told us a thing.

Okay, enough with the ‘80’s rock lyrics.

For a couple of decades, I was in the State House press food chain. I fed ‘em and occasionally got chewed on by them. I’ve also gagged on plenty of smoke in those back rooms where the “people’s business” really gets done.

The Jersey Journal is reporting that the New Jersey State Police has begun a background check on State Senator and Bayonne Mayor Joseph Doria, who has been rumored as a possible candidate for Commissioner of Community Affairs.  Doria's name has been in the mix for the DCA post since Susan Bass Levin left to become Deputy Executive Director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.