Corzine's legacy: Jersey's children
Sunday, January 10, 2010
STATEHOUSE

For four years, Gov. Jon Corzine was strictly business, all hard numbers and wooden delivery.

On his way out of office, he's going for the heart.

In his farewell speech, Corzine plans to highlight his record of improving the lives of children and families in New Jersey, a legacy that includes reforms in child welfare, school funding, school construction, preschool and children's health care, according to people familiar with the speech.

The Democratic governor, unseated by Gov.-elect Chris Christie in November, will also use his final State of the State address on Tuesday to urge policymakers not to abandon the next generation in dire economic times.

"We're very proud. Our kids are doing better than almost anyplace in the nation in their performance," Corzine said last week. "I think we've made a lot of progress. It's a challenge to keep that going. ...This is going to be a tough fiscal year, and we have to make tough choices. I hope that our kids are not one of those deficits that we create."

After four turbulent years that saw him shut down government, enact ethics and property tax reforms, nearly die in a car crash, and pitch an ambitious but failed plan to cut state debt through highway tolls, Corzine became the third governor in the past 60 years to lose after a single term. Christie, who portrayed Corzine as a failed financial guru, takes over Jan. 19.

Never big on speechmaking or self-aggrandizing, Corzine has made himself scarce since his defeat and has not revealed his plans. But when the former Wall Street executive faces both houses of the Legislature for the final time, he plans to use the last of his limelight on a cause that helped draw him to politics in the first place: the social safety net.

"The common thread in his years in public service has been protecting kids and those who don't have a voice," said health commissioner Heather Howard, who has worked for Corzine for nine years. "This is his true passion and it is what motivated him to get into public service. He's returning to that at the end because that is his lasting legacy. These are structural reforms that are going to benefit not just today's kids, but kids in the future."

The 63-year-old Corzine will touch on other broad themes of his administration including property tax relief, ethics reforms, and fiscal responsibility, all priorities when he took office in 2006. But while those areas are marked by halting progress -- Corzine acknowledged during the campaign he got only halfway to some of his goals, and others were swallowed by the recession -- the social policies are more clear-cut successes, advisers say.

"People are still feeling the pain of the economic collapse right now, and they don't see those things," said Harold Hodes, a top Democratic strategist who worked closely with the governor. What is clear-cut, Hodes said, is that "he cares very deeply about the people of New Jersey."

Corzine also plans to strike a gracious tone toward Christie in the aftermath of their negative campaign and shaky transition handoff.

"The outgoing governor is really speaking without power, so he's not going to step on the toes of the incoming governor," said Don Linky, who leads the Program on the Governor at Rutgers University. He added that with time, the public's view of all governors "tends to mellow."

Former governor Brendan Byrne, who survived public scorn to win a second term, said his transition to senior statesman was smooth because his accomplishments "were very easy to dramatize": opening Atlantic City to casinos, overseeing construction of the Meadowlands and preserving the Pinelands. Corzine's biggest achievements -- such as changing New Jersey's school-funding formula after a 40-year court battle -- don't have a simple translation, he said.

"Pinelands is easy to put on a tombstone, and having educational dollars follow the child is a little tough to put on a tombstone," Byrne said. "Not that he or I are worried about that."

Corzine plans to link together pieces of his record, including:

"¢ Winning legislative and state Supreme Court approval for a new school-funding formula that distributes state aid based on enrollment.

"¢ Implementing court-mandated reform of the state's child welfare system, including creating the Department of Children and Families, after a series of cases of abuse and neglect.

"¢ Signing legislation ensuring access to affordable health insurance for all children, as well as paid family leave for workers caring for a new baby or sick relative, and increased insurance coverage for children with autism.

"¢ Increasing spending on public preschools, following a court mandate to provide it in the poorest districts, and authorizing $3.9 billion in state funding for new schools.

Child advocates who worked with Corzine say he was driven by necessity -- such as court orders on child welfare and preschool -- as well as liberal political principles and human concern.

"We've been involved in a lot of lawsuits around the country, and we've had court orders against other governors, and I have not seen any state, any governor make the same kind of sustained commitment as I've seen with Governor Corzine," said Marcia Robinson Lowry, executive director of Children's Rights, the advocacy group that sued the state.

Corzine, sometimes awkward or dispassionate in other environments, "lights up" around children, Howard said. That was evident in the weeks after the election, when Corzine rarely appeared in public but for events with needy children by his side.

"That's him at his finest hours, because it was real," Hodes said. "I think he cares about the legacy."