N.J. teachers union assails top Democrats over health-care bill

A full-blown war has broken out in Gov. Christie's Trenton, with Democratic Party leaders openly feuding with the teachers' union, one of their traditional sources of support and money.

The New Jersey Education Association, the state's largest teachers' union and most powerful lobby, released a television ad Wednesday that blasted a bill that could double the amount the typical teacher pays for pension and health benefits.

The ad, to be shown on stations in New York and Philadelphia, takes aim at the highest elected Democrat in the state, Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D., Gloucester), and his Cherry Hill-based patron, George E. Norcross III, who is among the state's most powerful unelected Democrats.

Sweeney's support of the benefits measure, for which Christie has long campaigned, is a betrayal and will line Norcross' pockets, the union alleges.

Norcross wasted no time in firing back. Late Wednesday afternoon in Cinnaminson, at a quickly convened news conference, he gathered some of the state's leading bold-faced names - Newark Mayor Corey Booker, former Gov. James J. Florio, Rutgers-Camden chancellor Wendell Pritchett, and Msgr. Michael Doyle, an icon in Camden. The group argued for more civility in discussing educational issues and said the NJEA needed to be open to ideas, such as more charter schools, to help the state's urban school districts.

"What I saw this past week in an attack ad was a departure from the sensible - was painful and poisonous - and not in any way adding what is necessary for us to move forward," Booker said.

For several months, Sweeney and Christie have negotiated behind closed doors to address the state's underfunded pension and health benefits plans. The resulting bill, sponsored by Sweeney and endorsed Wednesday by Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D., Essex), will get its first hearing Thursday. Teachers are expected to rally against it at the Statehouse.

Democrats have become "enablers and allies" of the governor, and are "trying to out-Christie Christie," NJEA executive director Vince Giordano said Wednesday afternoon.

The NJEA raises more money for Democratic legislators than any other group, Giordano said. As a result of the party's actions, Democrats will lose legislative seats in the November elections, he predicted.

"It's a party that has seemed to have lost its way in terms of middle-class values, working-people values, their affinity with unions," he said.

The NJEA sees the bill as a threat to collective bargaining because it mandates higher health insurance payments instead making changes through negotiations. The bill seeks to fix the state's budget problems at the expense of teachers who cannot afford it, the union charges.

In its television ad, the NJEA alleges an improper relationship between Sweeney and Norcross, executive chairman of Conner Strong & Buckelew, a major insurance broker, saying, "Sen. Steve Sweeney is doing the bidding of New Jersey's most powerful political boss - insurance broker George Norcross, who makes huge profits selling health insurance to New Jersey school districts."

A previous version of Sweeney's bill contained a provision that would have prevented school districts from joining the cheaper state-run health benefits plan. The state health plan cuts out brokers such as Norcross, and has caused Norcross' firm to lose millions when districts have switched to it, according to the union.

Sweeney "was apparently more interested in protecting the interests of George Norcross than the interests of taxpayers," said NJEA president Barbara Keshishian.

That provision was pulled from the bill, but the NJEA says it indicated how closely Norcross is tied to the deal.

The new bill is believed to contain a provision that would place limits on public employees seeking medical treatment out of state. This, according to the NJEA, would benefit Norcross in his position as chairman of Cooper University Hospital in Camden, which competes with hospitals in Philadelphia.

Norcross disputed the NJEA's data on his insurance business, and said the amount he may have lost was "immaterial" to his $1 billion business. As for the out-of-state hospital provision, he said it would save New Jersey money.

The reason the NJEA is coming after him, he said, is because in the last few weeks, for the first time in more than two decades of maintaining a low profile in politics, he had spoken out in support of education reform.

"What's resulted . . . is an assault, an assault, I presume intended to frighten, intimidate, me, Steve Sweeney and others," Norcross said.

Although Christie has not spoken publicly about the controversy, his presence in the NJEA feud with Democrats is implicit. Since coming into office he has allied himself with powerful Democrats like Norcross and Booker and has consistently vilified the teachers' union.

The NJEA said Wednesday that it was going after Norcross only because of the benefits bill and not because of his school-reform plans or Christie alliance. It said it had spent about $2 million on this and other ads in the last five or six weeks.

The union's attack on Norcross comes at some risk, said one political expert.

"The reality is, it takes a lot to slay these dragons," said professor Brigid Harrison of Montclair State University. If NJEA leaders "essentially declare war on what heretofore have been political allies, they really risk this protracted situation where they lose their political clout and ability to work with legislators in the future."