Gov. Richard Codey (D) Assumed office Nov. 2004, 1st term up Jan. 2006
Born:	Nov. 27, 1946, Orange, NJ
Home:	West Orange
Education:	Fairleigh Dickinson U., B.Ed. 1981
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	married (Mary Jo)
Elected  Office:	NJ Assembly, 1973-1981; NJ Senate, 1981-present, Minority Ldr., 1998-2001, Democratic Pres., 2002-03, President, 2004.
Professional Career:	Insurance broker; funeral director.
Office	P.O. Box 001, Trenton 08625, 609-292-6000; Fax: 609-292-3454; Web: www.state.nj.us.
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Update: December 14, 2005
On November 8, 2005, Democratic Senator Jon Corzine defeated Republican businessman Douglas Forrester 54% to 43% in the campaign to succeed Acting Governor Richard Codey.

Richard Codey, the acting governor of New Jersey from November 2004 to January 2006, has been a state legislator almost all his adult life and, under the New Jersey Constitution, remains one while also serving as chief executive. Codey grew up in Orange, in an apartment over his father's funeral home. Codey graduated from Oratory Prep and attended Fairleigh Dickinson University and worked as an insurance broker; he went back and got his degree while serving in the Senate. He got involved in local politics early, and became a member of the Essex County Democratic Committee at 21, then the voting age. In 1973 he was elected to the Assembly at age 26. There he chaired the State Government Committee for six years and sponsored the Casino Control Act of 1977 that legalized gambling in Atlantic City. In 1981 he was elected to the state Senate. There he chaired the Health, Institutions and Welfare Committee and helped pass a law requiring insurer to pay for 48-hour hospital stays for childbirth. In 1987 he heard that one-third of the employees at the Marlboro state mental hospital were ex-convicts. He assumed the identity of a dead ex-convict and got a job as an orderly, and then exposed the conditions there. Later he explained his interest in the issue. "Most people assume it's because of my wife's mental illness [depression]. But it's got nothing to do with that. I've always explained while I was a teenager working for Dad [a funeral home director], picking up bodies, I would go to Graystone [Park Psychiatric Hospital, near Parisippany] or wherever county psychiatric institution to pick up a body." What he saw, he said, "made One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest look like a picnic."

Codey worked on other issues in the state Senate and rose to leadership positions despite fights with influential Democrats. He worked on creating an Atlantic County regional development authority and an amendment allowing simulcasting of horseracing and betting in casino hotels; he used to own racehorses and his brother is the general manager of Freehold Raceway. He backed an assault weapons ban. In 1993, as assistant Senate minority leader, he unsuccessfully resisted when Camden County Democratic leader George Norcross and Middlesex County Democratic Chairman John Lynch--the most powerful state Democrats for a dozen years now--got two new assistant minority leaders appointed. In 1998 he was elected Senate minority leader despite clashes with Norcross and Lynch over leadership posts. In 2000 he was one of the few New Jersey Democratic politicians to back former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley over Vice President Al Gore. After the 2001 state election, in which both parties won 20 seats in the state Senate, the leaders tried to depose him as party leader. But he survived and became co-president with Republican John Bennett. Both men also served briefly as acting governor.

Donald DiFrancesco, acting governor since Christine Todd Whitman resigned to become EPA Administrator in January 2001, left the job when his term in the state Senate expired January 8, 2001; the newly elected governor did not take office until January 15. For 3 days, Bennett became acting governor and held several receptions in the governor's mansion, Drumthwacket. Codey began his 3 days as acting governor by having breakfast with inmates at Graystone Park Psychiatric Hospital and coached his son's junior high basketball team in a game that afternoon.

The elected governor to whom Codey turned over the job was Democrat Jim McGreevey. With fiscal problems looming, McGreevey increased the cigarette tax by 70 cents and also the corporate business tax. In June 2004 the legislature passed McGreevey's "millionaires tax," actually a tax on income over $500,000, to produce $800 million for property tax rebates. He got the legislature to pass the nation's first law requiring handguns to contain a device allowing only designated owners to fire them, but it could not be enforced until the technology is developed. He was embarrassed when two of his appointees, state police superintendent Joseph Santiago and homeland security adviser Golan Cipel, were forced to resign. He was embarrassed also when Amiri Baraka, whom he named as state poet laureate, published a poem in which he claimed that Jews were behind the World Trade Center bombing. McGreevey urged Baraka to resign but he refused; McGreevey then signed a bill eliminating the position.

In 2003 Democrats won a 22-18 majority in the state Senate, and Codey became the sole Senate President. The legislature passed and McGreevey signed a domestic partnership act, one of the nation's first. McGreevey's major accomplishments seemed to some to work to cross-purposes. One was the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act, which put 395,000 acres near drinking water sources in North Jersey off limits to most development and set aside an adjoining 400,000 acres for low-density growth. The other was a "fast track" law, setting time limits for regulators to rule on development applications in areas classified as suitable for development. Hanging over all this were images of corruption. U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie obtained indictments of many local officials and of prominent McGreevey fundraisers Charles Kushner and David D'Amiano. Kushner was charged with trying to thwart a federal investigation by luring a grand jury witness into a tryst with a prostitute; D'Amiano's indictment said "State Official 1" would signal his agreement in an extortion scheme by using the word "Machiavelli," and there was testimony that McGreevey referred to Machiavelli in a meeting. Increasing publicity fell on the huge sums of money being raised by county party leaders, particularly George Norcross and John Lynch, also strong McGreevey supporters. Businesses with contracts with local government were pressed to contribute ("pay to play") by the county leaders, who then sent ("wheeled") the money to favored candidates in primaries and general election contests.

But the publicity here was nothing compared to the publicity given to McGreevey's announcement on August 12, 2004, that he would resign, effective November 15. "I am a gay American," McGreevey said, and hailed the nation's history of respecting minorities; he admitted to having an extramarital affair with a man. What he didn't mention was that the man was Golan Cipel, whom he had appointed to a $110,000 job at the Office of Homeland Security and then on his personal staff despite the man's lack of qualifications, and that Cipel was threatening to sue him for sexual harassment. New Jersey has no lieutenant governor, and Codey was in line to be McGreevey's successor.

But it was not clear just when he would become acting governor. If McGreevey resigned before September 3, a special election would be called on November 2. Norcross and Lynch had a ready candidate, Senator Jon Corzine, who had spent $63 million on his 2000 Senate campaign and had contributed millions to the county parties. And they had had continuing fights with Codey--in 2001 over who should be Speaker of the Assembly (the leaders' Albio Sires beat Codey's Joseph Doria), in early 2002 over who should head the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority (the leaders won), in late 2002 over who should be nominated for Essex County Executive (the leaders' Joseph DiVincenzo beat Codey's Tom Giblin), in 2003 whom should be nominated to run against a suddenly vulnerable John Bennett (Codey's candidate Ellen Karcher won the primary and in November). For the leaders, having Codey as governor for two months was highly preferable to having him governor for 14 months or, if he should win a full term in 2005, for five or nine years. But McGreevey resisted stubbornly and made some 200 lame duck appointments; he insisted on remaining governor for the whole 24 hours of November 15. In September 2004 McGreevey issued an executive order prohibiting contributions by companies that do business with state or local government. Leaders in the legislature, including Codey, worked to pass such a bill, though not successfully.

Codey announced he would continue to live in his house in West Orange and not move to the governor's mansion. "Where I come from, we were always trying to get out of public housing, not into it." He professed to be uninterested in pomp and ceremony. "Jim loved the roar of the crowd. It doesn't work for me. I don't need that approval. I've been in the legislature for 31 years." And he said he still had a passion to improve mental health treatment. "I think you've got to come up with a new system. The day before McGreevey resigned, I raided a boarding home for 71 mentally ill patients. I saw dead mice on the floor, cockroaches running all over, puddles of urine on the floor, which contains the kitchen or cafeteria. The heat in the rooms on an incredibly hot summer day exceeded 95. There was one bathroom in the place that totally worked. It was just an absolute disgrace. We've got to do away with those kinds of places."

Going into 2005, Codey seemed to have good will among legislators of both parties, but faced serious fiscal problems. A sales or income tax increase? "I'm not pledging. I'm saying it's the last thing I would want to do, clearly." Sports teams were threatening to leave the Meadowlands complex unless the state made major changes. The New Jersey Turnpike needed more lanes between Jamesburg and the Pennsylvania Turnpike Extension. Codey said he wanted to make adjustments in McGreevey's fast track law and he endorsed, and took credit for, McGreevey's stem cell research proposals. "That stem cell bill, that was all mine. My idea. Now I want to continue to make New Jersey one of the leaders in the country on stem cell research." He admitted that New Jersey couldn't match the $3 billion California voters agreed to spend, but said the state was well positioned, with all its pharmaceutical companies, to be a research center.

Looming over the first months of his governorship was the specter of Jon Corzine, clearly ambitious for the governorship and prepared to spend liberally from his perhaps $300 million in wealth to win it. At least one other Democrat was looking at running if Corzine didn't, or if Corzine and Codey both did, 1st District Congressman Rob Andrews, who lost narrowly to McGreevey in the 1997 primary. On December 2 Corzine announced he was running. He said his wealth insured that he would be "unbought and unbossed." "It's his right to run," Codey said. "He considers me a friend of his. So be it. It is what it is." Codey held a rally of Essex County Democrats on December 9 and he prepared meticulously for his State of the State speech January 11. But Corzine had far more support among party leaders--George Norcross and John Lynch, Congressmen Robert Menendez and Frank Pallone (both interested in the appointment to the Senate Corzine would make if elected governor), Speaker Albio Sires and many others whom Corzine had supported generously over the years. On January 31 Codey announced he was not running and backed Corzine. Codey noted that he would still remain Senate President throughout 2005 and after, assuming a Democratic majority; Corzine or a Republican governor would have to deal with him in 2006 and beyond.

In June 2005 Corzine won the primary with no serious opposition, and in a Democratic state seems to be the favorite. But George W. Bush's 46% in New Jersey in 2004 suggests the state is a little less Democratic than it used to be, and Corzine won the 2000 Senate race by only 50%-47% after spending $63 million.

Among the Republicans, Bret Schundler announced his candidacy in July 2004, when everyone thought McGreevey would be running for reelection. He promised to assemble an army of volunteers to circulate petitions calling on the state legislature to pass constitutional amendments limiting state and local spending increases to 1.3% times the inflation rate, with a view toward reducing property tax rates. He also joined state Senate Minority Leader Leonard Lance in a lawsuit challenging McGreevey's $1.9 billion of borrowing to balance the budget. And he said Corzine "lined up Democrat [sic] party bosses behind him by spreading around money and working New Jersey's corrupt pay-to-play system of politics with the gusto of a bond trader." Some Republican moderates disliked him because of his conservative stands, and some insiders because he challenged Acting Governor Donald DiFrancesco in 2001, but he did win the primary that year with 57% of the vote. Also declaring was Douglas Forrester, who was leading Senator Bob Torricelli in the 2002 Senate race and lost to his replacement, Frank Lautenberg, by only a 54%-44% margin when he spent $8 million of his own money. Forrester again spent freely, launching his campaign for governor with $1 million in TV and radio ads in November 2004. By early June he had spent $10 million of his own money, much of it on television and radio ads. Forrester, who held more moderate views than Schundler on abortion and gun rights, defeated him 36%-31%. Morris County Freeholder John Murphy finished third in the seven-candidate field with 11%.

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent
2005 general	Jon Corzine (D)	1,224,493	53%
	Douglas Forrester (R)	985,235	43%
	Other	80,277	4%
2005 primary	Jon Corzine (D)	207,670	88%
	James Kelly (D)	19,512	8%
	Francis Tenaglio (D)	8,596	4%
2001 general	James McGreevey (D)	1,256,853	56%
	Bret Schundler (R)	928,174	42%