Capital Games

Staff moves in Menendez office

One of Sen. Bob Menendez's top policy aides joined a lobbying firm last week, while a press aide has moved over to a Democratic campaign job.

Legislative director Chris Schloesser was named a vice president of Winning Strategies Washington last week, where he'll lobby for the firm's corporate and association clients.

Before leaving, Schloesser was involved with Menendez's work on immigration reform and on the Senate Banking Committee. He had previously handled homeland security issues for Menendez when the Democrat served in the House.

Also, Batsaida Alcantara joined Menendez's staff as a press assistant, replacing Hannah August, who moved over to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Alcantara, a 23-year-old native of the Dominican Republic, previously served a fellowship through the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute and had worked for the Workers Rights Law Center in New York's Hudson Valley, which represented immigrants and farm workers. She's a graduate of Bard College.

August's move to the DSCC puts her back working for Matthew Miller, who had handled communications for Menendez in the 2006 campaign and became the committee's communications director earlier this year. Menendez is vice chairman of the DSCC, which is a fund-raising and political arm of the Democratic caucus.

Presidential money

Today's paper carries my story about fund-raising by the presidential candidates in what we at The Record define as North Jersey, which is the counties we sell our paper, Bergen, Passaic, Morris and Hudson counties.

For those who want a picture of the entire state, there's two charts below showing the Clinton/Obama and Giuliani/McCain matchups in each county. Note that Obama out-raised Clinton in Essex County, for example, where he has the backing of Newark Mayor Cory Booker.

Geek note: To sort the contributions by county, I had to assign each zip code to a county. About 60 zips in New Jersey cover more than one county, so in that case the donations were assigned to the county with the largest number of households.

There's also a table listing all New Jersey donors on our campaign web site.

Buddy, can you spare 142 million dimes?

The 13 members of New Jersey's delegation in the House are sitting on more than $14.2 million in campaign cash with the next election more than a year away, new disclosure reports show.

Four Democrats and two Republicans have more than $1 million in the bank, according to fund-raising reports covering April through June that were due today at the Federal Election Commission.

Leading the pack is Rep. Frank Pallone, a Long Branch Democrat who chairs the powerful health subcommittee that regulates many health insurance issues and the Medicare pharmaceutical program.

Menendez sees Iraq progress, defends vote

In a meeting with New Jersey reporters today, Sen. Bob Menendez talked about the progress he's seen toward ending the war in Iraq, and defended his vote for a supplemental funding bill this spring that has made anti-war protesters who helped elect him very unhappy.

I've posted two audio excerpts below from the news conference.

In the first cut, Menendez talked about how much the Democrats really could expect to do, since they do not seem to have the votes to override a veto by President Bush. He argued a lot of progress has been made in the past year, and he'll keep pushing. [the file is 2.9mb and runs 3:14]

I also asked Menendez if he's spoken lately to Paula Rogovin, who helped keep last year's Republican opponent, Tom Kean Jr., on the defensive about the war.

Since Menendez and Sen. Frank Lautenberg voted for the Iraq supplemental, Rogovin has been sending out emails each time a New Jersey soldier dies saying the senators have blood on their hands.

Menendez said he hadn't spoken with Rogovin, so I asked him what he would say if he did. His reply focused on the other things that were in the spending bill, including funds for children's health insurance and for expanded health care services for veterans and soldiers. He also indicated he felt it was necessary to support the troops in the field. [The file is 2mb and runs 2:11]

Summoned

Sorry for the lack of posts. I returned from vacation Monday to jury duty and was picked for a panel for a trial that starts this morning.

Democrats outraged over Libby

Here's some of the reactions of the New Jersey delegation in Congress to President Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's prison sentence:

Hillary taps 7 from Jersey for Hispanic council

On the heels of the Senate's failure to pass immigration reform, Hillary Clinton announced the formation of a National Hispanic Leadership Council.

Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., a co-chairman of Clinton's campaign, is on the national executive committee, along with Rep. Albio Sires, D-West New York.

Other members of the council from New Jersey are:

• Mayor Sammy Rivera, Passaic
• Mayor Jose "Joey" Torres, Paterson
• Mayor Alberto Santos, Kearny
• DNC Member Tonio Burgos, Jersey City
• Mayor  Sal Vega, West New York