The story already has passed into New Jersey folklore, to be cited in future decades by political junkies now in diapers. “You see,” they’ll say, “back in the early 21st century, this guy nobody heard of became acting governor in the middle of a scandal. He winds up the most popular governor of his time. And how’s this for symbolism? One night, a month before he leaves office, he’s at his son’s high school basketball game, and his name gets picked out of a hat—kind of like how he became governor. So they bring him out to center court, and they say, ‘Okay, here’s the ball. See if you can make a basket from center court.’ And he does it.”
If basketball is a metaphor for politics—and surely Bill Bradley must have said something like that over the years—the story of Richard J. Codey, New Jersey’s most popular governor since Tom Kean the elder, must count for something. Fate picked Codey’s name out of a hat, put him at center court, and, with all eyes on him, he hit nothing but net.
His fourteen-month tenure over, Codey hasn’t retired to the political happy hunting grounds of whirlwind testimonials, paid speeches, West State Street lobbying, and deep-think-tanking. He’s still Senate president, the job he had on August 12, 2004, the day James E. McGreevey announced he would resign as governor.
He turned over the keys to Drumthwacket, the governor’s mansion, to Jon Corzine in January, the applause of editorial writers, colleagues, and ordinary citizens ringing in his ears. This is no mere figure of speech: In the waning days of his administration, when Codey and his wife, Mary Jo, went to see a movie in Maplewood, a woman in the audience told him, “Governor, if it were up to Maplewood, you’d still be our governor.” The house burst into cheers.
New Jersey Monthly caught up with Codey at his West Orange Senate office, as he reflected on his short-lived but memorable term as chief executive, his now-famous joust with a trash-talking radio shock jock, and a certain promise to the state treasurer.
On the day Jim McGreevey announced he would resign, you were unknown outside your Senate district. Could you have foreseen that you’d leave the governor’s office as the state’s most popular politician?
No, never. I’ve asked myself why that is. I think it’s an intangible. I don’t think there’s one thing you can point to.
You took a stand when Craig Carton of New Jersey 101.5 radio made disparaging remarks about your wife’s struggle with post-partum depression. Did you plan what you said to Carton?
I told my staff and the troopers, “Listen, this guy comes off at 7, and we’ll be getting there at 7, so we may run into each other. If we do, I’m going to say something. I think I’d be less than a man if I let this person walk by me without saying something. So I’m just preparing you.” And what happened happened. It turned out that people loved it, that somebody acted from his gut and wasn’t a wimp about it. You don’t plan things like that.
You told Carton that if you weren’t governor, you’d take him outside. Did you get any reaction from other politicians?
About three or four days later, Michael Bloomberg called me from Europe to congratulate me. He talked about Michael Dukakis [who showed no emotion when asked whether he would favor the death penalty for someone who had raped and murdered his wife], Ed Muskie [who appeared to weep while defending his wife against a disparaging newspaper editorial during the New Hampshire presidential primary in 1972], and Harry Truman [who threatened to punch out a music critic who panned his daughter Margaret’s singing performance]. Bloomberg said I handled the situation like the people of the state wanted me to handle it.
With the good press you received as you left office, it was almost forgotten that South Jersey political boss George Norcross, ex–state senator John Lynch, and others tried to block you from serving out McGreevey’s term.
McGreevey wanted to make sure that the political bosses he had catered to—and who were now after his throat—did not get what they wanted. To his credit, he was very strong about that. When I met with him for the first time after his announcement, there must have been 70 reporters outside his office. Everybody thought we were inside the office talking about the transition. We weren’t. We talked about what had happened to him. He said, “Dick, I don’t have a job, I don’t have any money, but one thing is sure: These bastards are not going to get their way. I am not going to resign early. Only I can make that decision, and I’m not going to do it.” That’s essentially what we talked about, and not the transition. So I had to bluff my way through that incredible sea of reporters waiting outside the office.
Does it give you some sense of satisfaction that you prevailed over Norcross and Lynch during that fight?
I hear through the grapevine that Norcross—although obviously he’s a person who doesn’t like me—has been complimentary, and so has Lynch. I have had some conversations with Lynch, and at no time has he ever said anything inappropriate. He was a perfect gentleman in those couple of brief conversations.
You took office in mid-November and jumped right into a budget crisis: a budget gap of nearly $4 billion.
That’s the one that kept me up at night. Before I actually became governor, I brought John McCormac, the state treasurer, up here to West Orange. I said, “John, I’ve been a legislator for 30 years. I’ve never been on a budget committee. I need help, and if you can help get me out of this situation, I’ll kiss your rear end on State Street any time you want.” And he said, “Well, you know Dick, I do have a pretty big target.”
Your budget plan impressed Wall Street. The state’s credit rating went up.
The decision was to either raise the sales tax or reduce property tax rebates. The more I thought about it, the more I decided I didn’t want to increase the sales tax. In the 1990s, when the Republicans were in power, they essentially did away with all the rebates except for seniors and the disabled, and it didn’t hurt them one iota. I got slammed rather royally and attacked by my own party in the Assembly, but even while they were criticizing me personally for this, I made a conscious decision not to go back at them on a personal level. I kept the lines of communication open to [then Assembly Speaker] Albio Sires. I said, “Albio, this thing is what it is.” He said, “Dick, between the two of us, if you can restore the rebates to seniors, I think you can get it done.” I shook his hand on that and said, “I’ll find a way to do that.”
That’s a nice story, but you’re avoiding the important question: Did you make good on your promise to McCormac?
It hasn’t happened yet, but to John’s credit, he’s lost a lot of weight lately. It’s less of a target, but it’s a more appealing target.
You did the Sinatra thing in your farewell speech—Regrets, you had a few, but then again, too few to mention. Surely you can mention one or two—aside from not keeping your promise to McCormac?
Hey, listen, there are a lot of things. I woke up this morning and I was thinking, Gee, I would have liked to join Bloomberg in the fight to cut off illegal guns coming into the state.
What about the new state slogan?
What I liked is that we asked the people for suggestions. Every time I went out, people came up to me and said, “Hey, I have an idea for a slogan.” One guy came up to me and said, “How about ‘New Jersey: the Home of Albert Einstein.’ ” Well, that’s nice, but there’s not enough there. So I said, “How about this: ‘New Jersey: We’re Not All Einsteins.’ ”
I think you had too much fun as governor.
I think what people like about me is that, Hey, this guy isn’t staged. We never did a poll on any issue whatsoever, except for one relating to me versus Corzine sometime after I did my first State of the State speech. Other than that, we never did polling. Everything I did, I did from my gut.
One thing that isn’t so much fun is the state’s continuing budget problem. Do you see the state’s financial problems differently now?
Yes. I realize that it’s easy for legislators to put off decisions. And I’ve always said—and this was reaffirmed when I became governor—that it’s much easier to be a legislator. You can just be critical as a legislator, you don’t have to necessarily be responsible. As governor, you have to be both. From Day One, I said to my staff, “Whenever the press calls us about something wrong going on in state government, if they are correct, we will not be defensive, we will be offensive. We will say, ‘All right, what should we do to fix this?’ ”
And some things did go wrong.
Whether it was UMDNJ or any other issue, that was the approach we took. Like when [state police superintendent] Rick Fuentes and [state attorney general] Peter Harvey decided unilaterally to take some troopers out of Homeland Security. I said, “Hey, you shouldn’t have done that without my permission.” So I said, “Hey, these guys made a mistake and I’m not going to allow it.”
Is it hard to sit in the audience when Governor Corzine is delivering a speech?
I’m well aware that people are watching and you can’t pick your nose. I’m in a tough position. I’m a former governor who does not want to criticize the sitting governor, and at the same time I’m in a position where I’m going to have to.
What will you miss?
Quite frankly, I’ll miss something I always enjoyed mentally: the press conferences. I knew the press would always try to find a hard question to bottle me up or knock me off-kilter, and I loved the challenge of giving them an answer, showing a sense of humor, and getting through the press conference without screwing up. I remember one press conference in particular. You know how you have somebody on staff who will end the press conference by saying, “Okay, no more questions”? I’m up at Drew University on a bill about banning smoking in dormitories, so there’s maybe about seven or eight reporters. And finally [Codey aide] Sonia Frazier says, “Okay, no more questions.” And I said, “No, one more is all right.” And one reporter says, “Governor, I want to ask you about the gas tax.” So I said, “You know what? I think Sonia was right. I’ll see you later.” That time I made a mistake.
Not every politician can juggle work and private life, but you managed to throughout your term. How?
It’s about balance, and I think people like that. I’ve had this conversation with Corzine. I said, “Jon, I don’t think they want to see somebody who works 24/7 on politics, because that’s not a real human being.” Of course, his kids are raised, but he still has to show that balance. I used to have this conversation with McGreevey. I used to tell him, “You know, you really can’t meet 9 million people in four years. I know you’re trying, but it’s not going to work.”
Families go through a lot in politics. Yours certainly did last year.
The shock-jock thing was tough. As right as I was, it was tough, especially for my youngest son, Chris, who was a sophomore in high school at the time. He knew that the country was talking about his mother, and he let us know that he didn’t want to read about it anymore. Of course, my older son, Kevin, wanted to go to the radio station himself, which was understandable. It bothered my wife too, but she didn’t let it show. But it was a tough time for us, no question about it.
Aside from that incident, did you ever find yourself biting your tongue?
That was one of the biggest fears of my staff. They’d say, “Oh, I hope he doesn’t say that or this.” Very often, I’d run stuff by them ahead of time and ask them if I could get away with saying something funny. McGreevey used to say to me, “Dick, you can get away with saying things that I can’t.” You have to know if it’s the appropriate time and if you’re in front of the appropriate mix of people. I went to Sussex County for their Oktoberfest, and there’s a polka band playing. So I say, “I have to be honest with you. I’m in my late fifties. I’m from Essex County. I don’t ever remember seeing a polka band in Essex County. Furthermore, I don’t know what’s going on up here, but this is September. Why are we celebrating Oktoberfest? Does it get that cold up here that you have to do this in September?” And they laughed.
Do you still have unfinished business?
Stem-cell research—we need to get this done and stay a leader. Jon [Corzine] said to me, “Dick, thank you for stem-cell, because when I get up and speak, that’s where I get my biggest applause.” We’re going to go through with it, no question about it.
Terry Golway is a contributing writer who lives in Maplewood.