Thurs., Dec. 3, 1998

Mike Pappas to croon ‘Here Comes the Bride'

Rep. Mike Pappas, R-Rocky Hill, may have lost his bid for re-election last month, but his future plans still look bright. He told The Trentonian last night that he has agreed to marry his longtime girlfriend, Sage Mason, a Lucent manager who lives in Somerset.

Pappas, 38, is divorced. The former mayor of Franklin Township and a Somerset County Freeholder, he was elected to Congress in 1996 and was defeated in a bid for a second term last month by Democrat Rush Holt.

During his two-year congressional term, Pappas developed a reputation for detailed attention to his lawmaking duties that left him little time for a personal life. He said earlier this year that he hoped to re-marry, but that his work on Capitol Hill left him with little time to build his private life in New Jersey.

Pappas was first elected to office at the age of 21, becoming one of the youngest mayors ever to serve in New Jersey. At 24, he was elected to the Somerset County Freeholder Board, where he served with future governor Christie Whitman.

Pappas has not yet announced his plans once he leaves office in January, though many Republicans speculate that he will challenge Holt in two years for the seat in the 12th District, which included part of Mercer County. Before serving in Congress, Pappas was an executive in his family insurance agency.

A date for the Pappas-Mason wedding has not been announced.

Dec. 3, 1998

Christie Stands Up for Driver's Rights: NEWS ANALYSIS

Yes, it was Christie Whitman you saw last night on the ABC's Nightly News with Tom Brokaw talking about New Jersey's highways. She's also had sound bites every hour on the hour on CNN repeating the story of her successful stand against the "High Occupancy Vehicle" lanes that she just got the federal government to shut down in northern New Jersey.

Whitman stared down the feds and, in the end, it was the big bureaucracy that blinked.

That's huge national news.

New Jersey's HOV lanes are closed and the state isn't going to give back any of the $140 million that the federal government paid to build them. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who serves as New Jersey's highest ranking representative on the Senate Transportation Committee made sure of that. He got help from Rep. Marge Roukema, R-Bergen who put language in the latest transportation funding legislation that let New Jersey off the hook for the money.

People who drive Interstates 287 and 80 every day are ready to nominate Whitman and the gaggle of politicians who helped her for sainthood because they've got an extra lane.

But drivers all over New Jersey have reasons to cheer Whitman's leadership on the HOV lanes even if they never go near Routes 287 or 80. If last year's governor's race on auto insurance left any doubts, the bi-partisan resolve that it took to put the needs of New Jersey driver's ahead of the whims of Washington's transportation bureaucrats makes it clear that politicians have gotten the message that driving and traffic are the state's number one priority.

It wasn't an easy message to get across. Sources close to Lautenberg say that there are many on his team who are still miffed that the senator "caved" on the HOV lanes. For years, he's gone along with transportation bureaucrats who believe the only way to improve air quality is to change the nasty habits of drivers who insist on going places in their cars. Former governor Jim Florio's Dept. Of Environmental Protection Commissioner, Jeanne Fox, now runs the federal environmental control office for this region and insiders say she also wasn't happy about the HOV lane backdown.

But Whitman has always known that forced car pooling wouldn't work in New Jersey.

Shortly after she took office, she abandoned the state's "Trip Reduction," program for forced carpooling, saying she would only support clean air strategies that are"smarter and less intrusive
on people's lifestyles."

HOV lanes didn't meet that criteria either.

The facts are on Whitman's side. Transportation analysts at the Urban Mobility Corporation say that five minutes are added to a commute for every additional passenger in the car, and that's if the passengers are conveniently located. Commuting alone by car is roughly twice as fast as any other form of mass transit. Its less expensive too.

U.S. Dept. Of Transportation figures also indicate that it costs 16 cents per mile for a person to drive a car. Forced carpooling and other mass transit costs can run as high as 63 cents per person per mile.

When Whitman took down the HOV lane signs earlier this week she called it "a liberation." She told reporters that the lanes weren't working and they didn't make sense.

By the time it was over, virtually every politician in the state stood with the governor and commuter rights have emerged as New Jersey's political third rail. From now on, no politician will dare make any move that might be viewed as anti-commuter.

Whitman has taken a stand so that all New Jerseyans have equal access to the fast lane.

Tues., Dec. 1, 1998

Torricelli will head Democrats' Senate drive

New Jersey U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli is expected to take over the helm of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee today, a Senate source told The Associated Press.

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle is set to make the announcement of Torricelli's appointment as chairman of the panel, replacing Nebraska's Bob Kerrey.

Torricelli currently serves as vice chairman of the DSCC, a strategic and fund-raising group which oversees the political and election strategies of Democrats running for the Senate.

Torricelli made big news inside the Washington beltway two years ago when he was selected for the No. 2 DSCC spot after serving only weeks in the Senate. Shortly afterward, he was described by the Washington Post as "a recognized master who lectures would-be candidates" on the art of successful fund raising.

Torricelli's national fund-raising efforts provided millions for Democrats running in last month's elections, and observers credited his vigilant support as one important factor in the upset defeat of Sen. Al D'Amato in New York. Many believed Torricelli was particularly aggressive about beating D'Amato because the New York senator's campaign strategist worked for Torricelli's 1996 opponent, former Rep. Dick Zimmer.

In an interview with The Trentonian last year, DSCC spokesman Michael Tucker said Torricelli's skill and "passion" for high stakes politics had resulted in "record breaking" fund raising.

Torricelli's new role will require even more extensive national travel and non-stop fund raising, but he told reporters recently that he believes the fund-raising work has legislative payoffs as well as political power:

"These campaign committee jobs are an enormous burden, but they guarantee you a seat at the table. So for New Jersey, the benefit is that every decision on each legislation that comes before Congress is in front of you."

Torricelli has a high-profile role in Congress and frequently serves as the Democratic spokesman on issues ranging from foreign policy to the presidential sex scandal. Torricelli is also one of a small circle of Democrats who has been advising the president regularly throughout the Monica Lewinsky debacle.

Torricelli is assumed by most political observers in Washington and New Jersey to be positioning himself for a vice presidential spot as early as 2000. Kerrey may be mulling a presidential bid.

The Englewood Democrat served 14 years in the House before being elected to Bill Bradley's Senate seat in 1996. He raised $9 million for that campaign.