NJ Education Report

After all the hoopla, New Jersey Democrats picked up one seat in the Assembly and, depending on your druthers, Chris Christie was a loser or a winner. With all the education-related bills rolling forward for debate during the lame duck session, there’s much riding on the dynamics of the State Legislature and its ability to wrestle competing interests.

First, a quick update of the key players: the Senate Democratic caucus just voted (here for Politicker NJ, here for Blue Jersey) and Steve Sweeney, who joined with the Governor to chaperone health benefits and pension reform through the Statehouse, was re-elected as Senate President. Majority Leader Barbara Buono is out, replaced by Loretta Weinberg. Word is that Sweeney offered Buono a co-leadership with Weinberg but she wasn’t interested.

In the Assembly, Speaker Sheila Oliver (who about half the time seems to back Christie’s ed reform agenda) will retain her post and Majority Leader Joe Cryan, who longed for Oliver’s post, is out on his tuchis. And everyone seems to agree that George Norcross, the Democratic power broker, remains in charge. Here’s the Star-Ledger:

Assembly Majority Leader Joseph Cryan (D-Union), an Oliver critic who made a play for the speakership, is out of luck. Outgunned by a power-sharing arrangement reached by Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo, the South Jersey insurance executive George Norcross and state Sen. Nicholas Sacco (D-Hudson), Cryan is expected to lose his post.

Cryan has been a faithful ally of NJEA, and made headlines defending the union’s $1 million attack ad after the vote last June on the pension/health benefits bill: “For those of us who haven’t sold out our party, we decline to accept. And for those of us who work for a living, we decline to agree,” Cryan said in a telephone interview. “The speaker [Oliver] doesn’t have the majority of her own caucus, and as the majority leader, I say she shouldn’t put it up [for a vote]. And as for the rest of us, we all want health care. We all believe in a better life for us and our children. And how terrible it is that the Democratic Party today chose to take a different path.”

Regarding public unions, PolitickerNJ has its customary list of “winners and losers;” the public unions are listed in the latter category:

Beat up earlier this year by pension and benefits cuts, the unions won’t have a seat in leadership’s inner sanctum as Democrats who primarily backed the Christie-championed reforms prepare to give Assembly Majority Leader Joe Cryan (D-20) the heave-ho. They worked hard in key races, too, according to sources: most notably in LD 14 and in LD 38 and the Bergen Freeholer County race where respectively Assemblywoman Connie Wagner and Freeholder-elect Joan Voss offered motivation as professional educator.

PolitickerNJ also lists as a “loser” Assemblywoman Valerie Huttle: “[a]s part of the Cryan insurrection, the 37^th District assemblywoman would have occupied a key leadership chair – maybe even speaker. But that collapsed when Norcross defused Cryan.”

Huttle put out a press release last week that highlighted her lurch onto the death-to-all-rich-people-who-care-about-education bandwagon. George Tepper of Better Education for Kids bailed out NJ After 3, an important afterschool program for poor kids. Here’s Huttle’s press release: “it’s great that NJ After 3 will be saved…It’s also interesting that the organization the Governor has chosen to take over the reigns [sic? Pun?} of the NJ After 3 program is run by wealthy hedge fund managers who have spent millions of dollars on ads singing his praises.”

Hey: it could be worse. It could be Speaker Huttle.