Another Norcross favored in special Senate election

One of the biggest frustrations rookie State Sen. Donald Norcross says he has encountered in the Statehouse is how long it takes to get anything done.

"I'm an electrician by trade. They give me a set of prints; I go out; I build it; I get it done," said Norcross, a Democrat representing Camden. "That does not happen in Trenton."

But if he has accomplished less in his first nine months on West State Street than he would have liked, Norcross is likely to get more time to press his agenda for the Fifth Legislative District, which spans 19 towns in Camden and Gloucester Counties.

He is favored to win a special election Nov. 2 against Republican challenger Harry Trout, following his appointment last fall in a round of political musical chairs.

Norcross, 51, was elected to the Assembly last November to the seat of retiring Democratic Speaker Joseph J. Roberts Jr. His party immediately appointed him to a Senate seat being vacated by Dana Redd, who was elected mayor of Camden.

This fall, Norcross has amassed $521,485 in campaign contributions, and he carries substantial name recognition. He heads the Southern New Jersey Council of the AFL-CIO, cochairs the Camden County Democratic Committee, and is the younger brother of political power broker George Norcross, chair of Cooper University Hospital.

Trout, a Woodbury councilman, has raised just $4,000 but hopes residents will see his appeal as a regular guy.

"I'm an average person . . . I'm not sure if [Norcross has] ever lived paycheck to paycheck and had to pay the type of insurance I've had to pay and asked himself some of the hard questions I've had to ask myself," Trout said.

Both candidates say they want to make New Jersey more business-friendly and address the state's highest-in-the-nation property taxes.

Also in the Fifth District, incumbent Democrat Gilbert "Whip" Wilson and Republican challenger Barbara Gallagher are vying for an Assembly seat.

Trout, a 49-year-old father of three, said that if elected, he would apply this lesson learned from running a small business: "If I can't afford it, I don't buy it."

"This state is not in great financial shape," said Trout, who manages a liquor store. "We have to take the bull by the horns and cut as much spending as possible."

He says he would consider putting new public employees in a 401(k) plan instead of enrolling them in the state's troubled pension system.

Trout said that he had paid as much as $1,200 a month for health insurance for himself and his family and that he would have no problem asking public employees to contribute more to their health insurance, given that "costs have increased for everybody."

Norcross, of Camden, has had a front-row seat to New Jersey's fiscal turmoil.

His first substantial vote was for a package of public employees' benefit changes signed into law by Gov. Christie requiring all government workers to contribute to their health-care costs. It also banned future part-timers from receiving pensions.

He withheld his vote from the $28 billion state budget in June, protesting that Christie had skipped a $3 billion contribution to the pension system while asking public workers to make sacrifices.

He has also sponsored a bill with Sen. James Beach (D., Camden) that falls into Christie's tool kit of property-tax fixes. It aims to save money by directing county clerks to send only one sample ballot to each residence address where a registered voter lives, instead of one for each voter.

Norcross said that Christie's reform package included useful "tools," but that he did not want to hamstring local officials with rules that give them no flexibility to address property taxes. He supports requiring raises awarded through arbitration to police and fire employees to stay in line with cost-of-living increases - Christie is pushing the Legislature to cap the raises at 2 percent - and wants to see the civil service system modernized.

Echoing Christie, Trout said the Legislature was acting too slowly on the tool kit.

The Woodbury councilman told of his personal struggles with New Jersey's high property taxes, saying he was unsure he could afford to stay in his home when his wife died 21/2 years ago and the family lost her income.

He wants to reduce the size of government, reining in free-spending independent authorities. He says he would also eliminate local school districts and create county-run districts in their place to lower education costs, which account for the bulk of property-tax bills.

"I know it's politically unpopular, but if we don't change how the system is being run, we're going to price ourselves out of the state," Trout said.

Norcross emphasized his support for economic development along the Camden waterfront and infrastructure improvements to I-295 going through the county.

Norcross already has riled his union base, particularly after sponsoring a bill passed by the Senate and awaiting action in the Assembly that would require public employees of New Jersey to live in state.

"That did not endear me to a lot of public employee unions, but I wasn't elected here by simply the union members of my district; I'm elected by all the people of my districts who voted," Norcross said.

At least five bills that list Norcross as primary sponsor in the Senate have been signed into law, including a measure authorizing the director of a county freeholder board to veto proposed actions of county authorities.

Another law he sponsored extended the time period during which fire departments can hire certain laid-off firefighters.

One bill Norcross would like the Legislature to move on is a package of ethics rules that would, among other things, end distribution of free E-ZPass transponders, limit travel, and impose a two-year revolving-door ban on public employees at all levels of government.

He stressed his political independence, saying that he was "very close" with brother George - considered the unofficial leader of the Camden County Democrats with statewide influence - but that they live separate lives.

"I'm very comfortable with what I do, and I don't think anybody . . . - anybody who even has a level of knowledge of who I am - doesn't think I'm my own man," he said.