'Slush fund' attack shakes a close Adler-Myers race

The corruption trial of former Camden County Sen. Wayne Bryant has thrown a sharp twist into one of the most closely watched congressional races in the nation.

In a Third District campaign that one poll labels a virtual dead heat, Republicans have seized on the trial's revelations about a fund controlled by top state Democrats and used for handpicked projects, attempting to link Democratic candidate and State Sen. John Adler to the scandal.

Republican candidate Chris Myers, mayor of Medford, personally went on the attack yesterday with an issue that Rutgers University political scientist Ingrid Reed said meshed well with the existing political narrative.

"People can understand this. You don't have to explain a lot to them," said Reed, director of the New Jersey Project at Rutgers' Eagleton Institute of Politics. "It fits into the continuing saga of earmarks nationally."

Republicans are also using trial testimony to help their campaign in the tight Seventh District race in central New Jersey.

Neither race has an incumbent, Reed said, which puts the focus solely on the candidates' records in New Jersey.

"There's no good way to answer [the Republicans' accusations] except to say you weren't involved," she said.

Myers accused Adler of having a hand in doling out tens of thousands of dollars from a state grant program Republicans have labeled a "slush fund" that lacked accountability and transparency. The fund was eliminated in 2006.

"Folks, this is an outrage," Myers said in a Statehouse news conference with Republican State Chairman Tom Wilson. Voters should not allow Adler to "go down to Washington and bring the corrupt Trenton culture," he said.

The Adler campaign, which has defended the Camden County senator's role in procuring grants for what they said are "legitimate projects" in his district, accused Myers yesterday of mudslinging.

"I'm not corrupt," Adler said at an Inquirer editorial board meeting that Myers also attended. He called the GOP accusations "false and insulting."

The attack came as a Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey poll released yesterday found Myers leading Adler by just 41 percent to 40 percent within the district, well within the survey's 4.4 percent margin of error.

At their news conference, Republicans passed out documents dated December 2005 from the leaders of three towns who dropped Adler's name as they sought $10,000 each from a $128 million account under scrutiny at the Bryant trial. Top budget aides have testified in court that key Democratic lawmakers awarded money from the fund to select causes with little oversight.

The grants, which were made without a vote or named sponsor, sought money for police cameras in Haddon, community center renovations in Cherry Hill, and traffic-calming devices in Haddonfield. Myers did not criticize the projects but said that without public review it was impossible to judge whether the most worthy programs got support.

Myers said that, if elected, he would not turn away groups in his district seeking money from Congress but that he would put his name on the requests and it would be a "transparent" process.

"There's a legitimate process on how you get funds," Myers said.

Adler accused Myers of "tearing down New Jersey."

"Mayor Myers has adopted the Karl Rove-George Bush playbook from day one. His game plan is to attack John Adler, sully John Adler's reputation, and hope enough people aren't paying attention to Mayor Myers' own failed record," said Adler campaign manager Mark Warren.

The scandal surrounding the Democrats' grants roiled Trenton on Thursday and Monday when a party budget aide and the current state treasurer testified that Bryant, Senate President Richard J. Codey (D., Essex), and former Senate Majority Leader Bernard Kenny (D., Hudson) controlled a combined $20 million out of the Treasury fund.

Adler's campaign has said that he did not control any of the money.

Causes in Republican districts received around $6 million from the fund, according to the state Democratic party.

Both parties acknowledge a long history of wedging money for lawmakers' pet projects into state and national budgets. But Republicans say the grants at issue in the Bryant trial were never voted on. Bryant is accused of steering money from the fund to one of his employers.

Treasurer David Rousseau testified that lawmakers alone decided where grants went. A joint Senate-Assembly committee, headed by Bryant, had veto power over the awards but it did not have to hold votes on the spending.

Warren said seeking grants for constituents is part of a senator's job. Adler said the Third District's longtime U.S. Rep. Jim Saxton, a Republican, also sought earmarks that "served our area well."

Reed, of Rutgers, said the issue is tricky for candidates.

"It's a new issue that you don't have control over, and you don't want that to happen in a close race," she said.