Loretta Weinberg

The Star-Ledger reports that the feds’ investigation of Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joe Ferriero has expanded, with subpoenas issued to the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission, where he’s chief counsel.

Two separate subpoenas were sent to the commission: one demanding all its records dealing with Ferriero’s law firm, Scarinci Hollenbeck, and one demanding records for a company Ferriero founded in 2001 called SVC consulting along with records related to the PR firm Vision Media.

In October, State Sen. Loretta Weinberg, a Ferriero rival, denounced the amount of money spent by several county agencies, including the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission, on consultants. Among the complaints about Vision Media was that a coloring book was the only evidence of its work for the commission.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker, backing up Senate President Richard Codey's endorsement of Obama.

Obama Campaign State Director Mark Alexander knew it would be hard to pry Sen. Hillary Clinton’s supporters loose in New Jersey after her victory in New Hampshire.

This was a fight now, and Clinton’s people were solid.

"We have an opportunity here in Hudson - Hudson, Hispanics, Hillary and history," Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) cried to a North Bergen audience of mostly Latinos with Clinton on stage.

The response was near to deafening with Clinton standing on stage with Menendez, U.S. Rep. Albio Sires (D-13) and state Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex).

But that didn’t mean there weren’t other opportunities for Obama; in fact, one big opportunity, in the form of Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex), who was at the moment glumly serving as state director for the foundering campaign of John Edwards.

Alexander knew Codey. He also knew Codey was close to former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley (D-NJ), who had come onto the Obama campaign as an advisor.

Obama Campaign State Director Mark Alexander. 

The campaign was about to change.

On Oct, 9, 2007, an announcement came down from Chicago regarding New Jersey operations. 

Mark Alexander, a Seton Hall University law professor and Obama’s senior policy advisor, would be the campaign’s official state director.

"I am grateful that he is going to carry the fight forward to and through the Feb. 5 contests," Obama said of Alexander. "He is a valued and trusted advisor, and at the same time has deep ties in his home of New Jersey that will be invaluable to our efforts. 

"I am proud of the policy work we have done on this campaign and through Mark’s leadership we have built a team of key advisors from the ground up that will continue to offer new and innovative approaches to the challenges this country faces," added the presidential candidate.

A personal friend of Barack and Michelle Obama’s going back a dozen years, Alexander as a child worked on the 1974 Washington, D.C. mayoral campaign of his father, Clifford Alexander, former chairman of the Equal Opportunity Commission. Later, he ran Sen. Bill Bradley’s 2000 presidential campaign and served as counsel to Cory Booker.

The county committee races in legislative district 37 led to a war of words today between Englewood Mayor Michael Wildes and state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, which even led to an argument about what kind of car each of them drives.

In response to Wildes’s claim that the Real Bergen Democrats have dispatched more than a dozen out-of-state canvassers who appear “grungy,” state Sen. Loretta Weinberg said that grunginess is in the eye of the beholder.

“I happen to think (Wildes) grungy, and it has nothing to do with his appearance,” said Weinberg. “It has to do with his political affiliations.”

Wildes is a consistent foe of Weinberg, and last year aborted a primary challenge against her after she brokered a peace with Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joe Ferriero. That agreement broke down six months after it was made, however, and the county committee fights in Englewood, Bergenfield and Teaneck are the feud’s latest manifestations.

Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joe Ferriero and State Sen. Loretta Weinberg, in 2007State Sen. Loretta Weinberg insists that the county committee battle between the Real Bergen Democrats and the Bergen County Democratic Organization isn’t a contest of personalities between her and Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joe Ferriero.

“It’s not because they’re affiliated with me. And I know that the press keeps saying this, and I know I’m the face of this movement, but there are hundreds of people who are involved in this, and what they are affiliated with is they don’t like the way our party is operating and how it’s been operating,” she said.

But Weinberg would love to see Ferriero’s dominance of the party diminished, and the Real Bergen Democrats have latched onto his subpoena by U.S. Attorney Chris Christie to help their cause. Weinberg allies even recently put out a mailer on the subject.

TEANECK -- Both sides in the hotly contested council election in this town play down their part in the long-standing feud between Bergen County Democratic Organization Chairman Joe Ferriero and state Sen. Loretta Weinberg.

But here on Weinberg’s home town, that rift is impossible to avoid.

Sitting down for a roast beef and chopped liver sandwich at a kosher eatery called Noah’s Ark on Cedar Avenue, councilman Elnatan Rudolph said that, while he doesn’t hide his ties to Ferriero, his opponents are the ones making the rift an issue. He noted a campaign piece that depicted him as a wind up toy, with Ferriero doing the winding.

While Honis and the two other candidates who act as her semi-official running mates dismiss partisan politics, Rudolph doesn’t buy it.

“They can tell you that. But it’s the same people who worked for (Weinberg), the same county committee men and women, who are supporting them in the race,” he said.

State Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck) thinks that a Teaneck councilwoman’s “gas chamber” comment was not intended to offend her Jewish colleagues, but that Monica Honis erred by not saying she’s sorry.

“I think it was a slip of the tongue, and I think that she should have immediately apologized,” said Weinberg, who’s not endorsing anyone in her home town’s council race. “And if she didn’t immediately do it, she should have at the subsequent council meeting.”

At a block association meeting on Monday, Honis, who’s up for re-election, said that picking her and not her two running mates would be like sending her “to the gas chamber.” Honis’s Jewish counterparts on the council took offense to that statement, saying that it was an insensitive reference to the holocaust.

Assemblyman Wayne DeAngelo, one of the sponsors of the Assembly version of paid family leave, which came out of committee today. 

The lobbyists' feeding frenzy continued in Trenton today as representatives from both the business and labor communities zeroed in on lawmakers in the hallways of power and attempted to elicit the promise of a yes or no vote on the issue of paid family leave.

The measure would extend state liability insurance to employees for up to six weeks, enabling workers to care for themselves, a newborn or a sick relative. Funding would come from the workers contributing on average a dollar a week from their salaries.

As news stations projected Sen. Hillary Clinton beating Sen. Barack Obama in New Jersey, Obama supporters at the Wilshire Grand Hotel in West Orange tried to fight off their disappointment.

U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman praised Obama's gutsy performance and reminded the candidate's supporters that few gave the Illinois senator a chance when he began his campaign.

"We had a huge turnout in Jersey City," said Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, who questioned the performance of new voting machines in his city.

On the eve of the New Jersey presidential primary and with most polls showing his rival trying to maintain a slight lead here, Sen. Barack Obama made a last stop in the Garden State today, telling voters that his message of hope is not one of naivete but of common purpose.