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Wednesday, January 12, 2005
By HERB JACKSON
Whether or not acting Governor Codey runs for a full term as chief executive this year, his State of the State address Tuesday laid out a foundation that any Democrat could run on.
Raise the minimum wage. Expand health care for the uninsured. Improve security at public schools. Pay off the college loans of workers at nonprofit social service and mental health agencies. Relax voter registration and absentee ballot guidelines. None of those issues would antagonize core Democratic voters, and some might even win over independents.
Codey opened the speech by trying to minimize one of the Democrats' biggest liabilities in the post-McGreevey era by saying he was committed to improving ethical standards. He then stopped short of spelling out such a tough agenda that Democratic legislators and party bosses would turn on him.
In contrast to the partisan harangues that former Gov.James E. McGreevey specialized in, Codey struck a more congenial tone. But his speech still had a partisan edge that relied on issues that could paint Republicans into a corner, with populist support on one side and the GOP position on the other.
Riskiest of these initiatives was a major expansion of public financing for stem cell research, an issue which Democrats believe is a winner in the pro-choice Garden State but one about which voters may still be forming their opinions.
A Quinnipiac University poll in August 2001 found that 67 percent of New Jersey voters supported embryonic stem cell research, and 68 percent supported government funding for research. But in March 2004, another poll by the same university found that voters disapproved, by a 48 percent to 42 percent margin, of a proposal by McGreevey to fund a $50 million research institute. Codey's plan included providing $150 million for the institute and a $230 million ballot initiative for research grants.
Codey was on much firmer political ground when he argued for more federal funding for homeland security programs. Citing statistics he probably heard at least a few times out of the mouth of the one Democrat to openly say he wants to be governor, U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine, Codey noted that Wyoming receives $30 per capita and New Jersey just $6.
Of course, we have a lot more capitas here than in Wyoming, and our $6 adds up to a lot more dollars than Wyoming's $30. But in a political speech, facts like that are irrelevant. The reason to bring the issue up is it puts you and everybody in New Jersey on one side, and President Bush and Congress and the Republicans who support them on the other side.
"Mr. President, our voices will not be quieted," Codey said. "Our efforts will not be stopped until you say 'yes' to New Jersey."
Republicans reacting to the speech rushed to tar Codey as another dancer in the conga line of liberal Democrats out to bankrupt the state at the same time they complained he didn't propose a state solution to property taxes, which would most likely include higher state taxes and spending.
"For the last three years, the Democrats have spent New Jersey taxpayer money like drunken sailors," Assemblyman Joe Pennacchio, a Morris County Republican who expects to run for U.S. Senate in 2006, said in a statement. "Unfortunately, it seems they have yet to sober up. New Jersey taxpayers should hold onto their wallets!"
It's true that Codey outlined several new spending programs and borrowing programs while punting on questions about how to close the deficit of at least $4 billion until his budget speech next month. But going after him on these issues has some risk.
It's easy to imagine Democrats coming back with a demand for Pennacchio to describe which Codey initiative he opposes, and check that against polls showing where most people in the state stand. Is it homes for mentally ill people who live on the street? Clinics for urban areas where people's only other option for health care is more costly hospital emergency rooms? Mental health screenings for uninsured new moms who might be suffering from postpartum depression?
Some people are not afraid to say they're against things like that, but not many. Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, a candidate for governor who's never been shy about saying he's a conservative Republican, is among those who feel government's responsibilities don't reach very far past paving the streets and locking people up when they break the law. Lonegan calls stem cell research "mad science," said state security analysts in schools would violate home rule, and ridiculed Codey's call for ethics training for state workers because the workers would do it on state time instead of their jobs.
To Lonegan, you have to be against that kind of spending if you want to be against high taxes and big government because the alternative is the slippery slope down into Democrat-lite. But while those kinds of positions are intellectually pure, they're also political dynamite in a state where liberal themes often play well at the polls. It wouldn't take too many 30-second commercials to make a candidate opposing ethics training and school security look like Satan. To win an election while suffering attacks like that, a candidate would have to be up against a very unpopular opponent.
Codey knows this, and how to work the Trenton system to get what he wants done. In a line that could end up in 30-second spots aimed against him, the 31-year legislative veteran noted, "I am a product of this Legislature."
The line came near the end of a speech in which Codey singled out nearly three-dozen individual legislators, including some Republicans. who have worked on issues he supported. It was designed to make those in the room feel good about working with him.
If the attempt succeeds, and Codey does decide to run for the big job, that kind of support will go a long way toward offsetting the effect of the millions Corzine will be able to spend.
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