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Jon Corzine

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Jon Stevens Corzine (born January 1, 1947) is the Governor of New Jersey. He was sworn into office on January 17, 2006, for a four-year term ending in 2010. He represented New Jersey in the United States Senate from 2001 until 2006, when he stepped down to take his seat as Governor. Prior to his political career, Corzine was Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs. He resides at Drumthwacket, the New Jersey Governor's official residence in Princeton, and also maintains a private permanent residence in Hoboken.

Early years and education

Corzine was born in central Illinois to Nancy June Hedrick and Roy Allen Corzine; his surname originates from The Netherlands. He grew up on a small family farm in Willey Station, Illinois and near Taylorville. After completing high school at Taylorville High School, where had been the football quarterback and basketball captain, he attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for his undergraduate degree, where he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity, and graduated in 1969, earning Phi Beta Kappa honors. While in college, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve and he served until 1975, attaining the rank of sergeant. In 1970 he enrolled in the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, from which he received a Master of Business Administration degree in 1973, launching him into his business career.

Marriage and divorce

He married his high school sweetheart, Joanne Dougherty in 1969 at the age of 22, and their 33-year marriage produced three children: Jennifer, Josh, and Jeffrey. The couple separated in 2002 and were divorced in November 2003. In November of 2005, Corzine's ex-wife told The New York Times that Corzine "let his family down, and he'll probably let New Jersey down, too." This quote was co-opted by gubernatorial opponent Doug Forrester for use in a campaign advertisement. Forrester later came under fire for using the quote because of its inherently personal nature.

Corzine had lived with his wife in Summit, New Jersey. After their separation, Corzine moved to an apartment in Hoboken, New Jersey, in the same building as Eli Manning and Jesse Palmer.

Business career

His first experience in business was in the Bond Department at Continental-Illinois National Bank in Chicago where, starting in 1970, he worked as a portfolio analyst while attending the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business at night. He then moved to BancOhio National Bank, a regional bank in Columbus, Ohio that was acquired by National City Bank. He worked there until 1975 when he moved his family to New Jersey. There he was hired as a bond trader for Goldman Sachs. Over the years, he worked his way up to Chairman and CEO of the company in 1994 and successfully converted the investment firm from a private partnership to a worldwide publicly traded corporation. He received numerous awards and recognition for his job including being named one of Time magazine's Top 50 Technology Executives in 1997. Being a democrat, Corzine also chaired a presidential commission for Bill Clinton and served on the U.S. Treasury Department's borrowing committee .

Entry into politics

After being forced from Goldman Sachs in January 1999, Corzine campaigned for one of New Jersey's Senate seats after Frank Lautenberg announced his retirement. Corzine was elected to the Senate by a four percent margin over his Republican opponent Bob Franks in the November 2000 election and was sworn into the Senate in January 2001. He spent over $62 million of his own money on his campaign, the most expensive Senate campaign in U.S. history — over $33 million of this was spent on the primary election alone, where he defeated former Governor James Florio 58%-42%.

Senate career

In the Senate, Corzine was a member of the Committees on Banking, Intelligence, the Budget, and Energy and Natural Resources. He co-authored the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a piece of legislation designed to crack down on corporate malfeasance. He was a supporter of introducing legislation that reforms the 401(k) plan to minimize the risk of investment portfolios. He was a sponsor of the Start Healthy, Stay Healthy Act, which expands health care coverage for children and pregnant women. Corzine supported providing a two-year tax break to victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to help them recover financially and help grant citizenship to victims that were legal resident aliens. He supported tighter gun control laws, outlawing racial profiling, and subsidies for Amtrak. He was also the chief sponsor, along with U.S. Senator Sam Brownback, of the Darfur Accountability Act, which would apply sanctions on the Sudanese government and create a framework for addressing the genocide occurring in the Darfur region. He was also one of 23 senators to vote against the Iraq War Resolution. Corzine also was the prime sponsor, along with U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg, of a federal version of John's Law, in memory of Navy Ensign John R. Elliott of New Jersey, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy who was killed by a drunken driver. The legislation provides federal highway safety grant incentives to encourage states to impound the cars of DUI suspects.

Since May 2005 he has been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post.

Campaign for governor

Corzine's candidacy for Governor, like his prior run for the U.S. Senate, broke all prior spending records. The combined expenditures for Corzine's run for the Senate and Governorship exceeded $100 million.

Corzine won his campaign for the post of Governor of New Jersey with 54% of the vote. Republican nominee Doug Forrester, a businessman and a former Mayor of West Windsor Township, in Mercer County, won 43%. Corzine received 1,224,493 votes to Forrester's 985,235. A total of 80,277 votes, or 3%, were scattered among other candidates.

Corzine won 13 of New Jersey's 21 counties: Atlantic, Bergen, Burlington, Camden, Cumberland, Essex, Gloucester, Hudson, Mercer, Middlesex, Passaic, Salem, and Union. Corzine won the three most populous counties (Bergen, Essex, and Middlesex), five of the top six, and seven of the top nine.

Governor

Because he is a multi-millionaire, Corzine accepts a token salary of $1 per year as Governor of New Jersey. State law allows for a maximum salary of $175,000. As Governor, he is a member of the National Governors Association and the Democratic Governors Association.

Shutdown of state government

Corzine, in attempting to pass the 2007 fiscal year budget, came into conflict with fellow state Democrats in the New Jersey General Assembly, particularly over the proposed increase of the state's sales tax from 6% to 7%. Corzine stated that he would not accept a budget that did not include the sales tax increase. After the legislature failed to pass Governor Corzine's budget by the midnight deadline of July 1, 2006, he signed an executive order that immediately closed down all non-essential state government services, such as road construction projects. Legislators failed to resolve the situation by July 4 and casinos, among other governmentally-regulated industries, closed their doors at 8:00 am on July 5. Governor Corzine called the shutdown "deplorable," though he refused to negotiate with legislators and accept alternate plans that did not increase the sales tax. It is estimated that the state lost several millions of dollars of revenue every day the casinos remained closed. Some surmised the casino closure was an effort to encourage reluctant South Jersey legislators to break the impasse.

After six days of the New Jersey state government being shut down Corzine and Assembly Democrats reached an agreement on the state budget. The compromise raised the state sales tax from 6% to 7% with half of the 1% increase going to the state budget and the other half going to property tax relief. On July 8, 2006, the $30 billion dollar state budget, with the sales tax agreement, passed both houses and Governor Corzine signed the budget into law ending the budget impasse.

Appointments

U.S. Senate replacement

Corzine continued to serve in the U.S. Senate while running for Governor, which ensured that he could resign from the Senate and appoint a successor if he won, and allow him to retain his Senate seat if he lost.

Initial speculation was that he would appoint a Democrat from one of the congressional districts in New Jersey, such as Congressmen Rob Andrews, Rush Holt, or Frank Pallone. Governor Richard Codey had also been touted, though on November 23 2005, he announced that he was not interested in pursuing the seat. On December 9, 2005, Corzine named U.S. Rep. Bob Menendez, a Democrat, to succeed him.

Nomination of State Attorney General

One of Corzine's first nominations was that of Zulima Farber as New Jersey Attorney General. Farber had been nominated to serve on the New Jersey Supreme Court by former Governor James E. McGreevey (who resigned in August 2004), but McGreevey withdrew the nomination after learning that Farber had bench warrants issued for her arrest due to numerous motor vehicle infractions. Despite criticism, Corzine nominated her as Attorney General. She served for approximately seven months until Governor Corzine demanded her resignation after an ethics investigation concluded that she had improperly influenced local police in Fairview, New Jersey who had stopped her boyfriend for a motor vehicle violation.

UMDNJ Board

On February 9, 2006, after many scandals regarding financial mishandling had emerged at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Corzine nominated Robert Del Tufo, the former Attorney General of New Jersey and U.S. Attorney, as chairman of the board of trustees. Corzine also nominated Oliver Quinn, Prudential Financial's vice president and chief ethics officer, as vice chairman of the board.

Abolition of capital punishment

Corzine, a death penalty opponent, as Governor supported and presided over abolition of the capital punishment in New Jersey and replacing it with life imprisonment. After the legislature passed this and he signed it into law, New Jersey became the first state to legislatively eliminate capital punishment since 1965.

Just before the enactment of the new law, he commuted the death sentences of all death row inmates to life in prison. This decision raised some controversy and criticism (even among supporters of abolition), because at that time life imprisonment still wasn't mentioned in the law and there were doubts about whether the commutations were legal.

Polling data and approval

After taking office in January of 2006, Corzine's approval numbers were low for a new governor. Many polls seemed to indicate that much of this negative polling was a direct result of the 2006 New Jersey State Government shutdown. An April 26, 2006, poll from Quinnipiac University Polling Institute showed Corzine at a 35% approval with a 42% disapproval. A February 28, 2007, poll from Quinnipiac University Polling Institute showed Corzine at 50% approval with 34% disapproval. With a release of a controversial plan to decrease the state's budget deficit, his approval rating fell to 40% in January, 2008.

Motorcade accident

On April 12, 2007, the Governor's two-car motorcade was involved in an accident on the Garden State Parkway near Galloway Township. Corzine, a state trooper, Secretary of Education Rosenberg and an aide were all injured in the accident. The Governor, who was riding in the front passenger seat, was not wearing a seat belt. Subsequent investigation by the New Jersey State Police determined that the SUV was traveling in excess of 90 MPH (147 km/h) in a 65 MPH (105 km/h) zone when the collision occurred. Corzine and the state trooper were flown by helicopter to Cooper University Hospital in Camden, a Level I trauma center, while the Governor's aide was taken by ambulance to Atlantic City Medical Center. Neither the state trooper nor the Governor's aide were found to be seriously injured. However, Corzine suffered numerous broken bones, including an open fracture of the left femur, 11 broken ribs, a broken sternum, a broken collarbone, and a fractured lower vertebra. He also received a large cut on his face that required repair by a plastic surgeon. Governor Corzine was traveling from a meeting with the New Jersey Conference of Mayors being held in Atlantic City to his official residence in Princeton to meet with radio personality Don Imus and the Rutgers Women's Basketball Team when the accident occurred.

On April 23, 2007, Corzine was upgraded from critical to stable condition at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, New Jersey. Corzine had been unable to speak due to the presence of a breathing tube in his throat and remained under heavy sedation (in addition to being on antibiotics to prevent potential infection of the wound on his leg). Due to Corzine's inability to perform his duties as Governor, in accordance with the New Jersey State Constitution, New Jersey Senate President Richard Codey assumed the Acting Governorship from April 12 until May 7, 2007. An amendment to the New Jersey constitution to create a Lieutenant Governor position — who would become the governor's designated successor in the event of a vacancy — was approved by the voters in 2005, but that position will not be filled until 2010.

The accident occurred when the Governor's SUV was driving at 91 m.p.h. on the leftmost lane of the highway with its emergency lights flashing. A red pickup truck swerved and another vehicle swerved to avoid the pickup truck and hit the car containing the Governor. Corzine's vehicle spun and hit the guardrail on the highway. There is some suggestion that the red pickup truck was attempting to avoid the Governor's SUV when it suddenly changed direction. The New Jersey State Police reviewed roadside camera recordings and E-ZPass records to track down the driver of the red pickup truck. The driver was identified, but was not charged with any violation for his involvement in the accident. A New York Times interactive graphic based on NJ State Trooper reports shows Corzine's vehicle being struck in the right front corner, sliding off the road, and striking a guardrail.

Corzine's chief of staff Tom Shea said he did not believe the governor had been wearing his seat belt. Friends of the governor have long said that they have rarely seen him wear one. "If he was not, he certainly should have been", Shea said, "and we would encourage the state police to issue a citation". When asked why the state trooper who was driving would not have asked Corzine to put on his seat belt, Shea said the governor was "not always amenable to suggestion". The Superintendent of State Police has also noted that the trooper could be charged in connection with the accident if it is determined that the crash was preventable.

Corzine was released from the hospital on April 30, 2007. He will recuperate at the Governor's Mansion in Princeton, which has been modified (at Corzine's own expense) to include both equipment that Corzine will need as part of his recovery as well as a videoconferencing center to allow him to communicate with New Jersey legislators. Shortly after his release from the hospital, it was reported by New York Post columnist Leonard Greene that the Governor's motorcade, while traveling on Interstate 295 en route to Drumthwacket, was clocked by unnamed non-police motorists at a speed of 70 MPH while in a 55 MPH zone.

Corzine issued a public apology and voluntarily paid a $46 ticket for not wearing a seatbelt.. Corzine shot a public service announcement, opening with the blunt statement "I’m New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, and I should be dead.

State Cabinet

Electoral history

See also

Notes

References

External links



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Last updated on Tuesday March 11, 2008 at 10:22:51 PDT (GMT -0700)
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