Welcome back, Tepper – Politico

Isn’t it ironic?

Yesterday, literally two minutes before the Senate gave final passage to the millionaires tax, Senate President Steve Sweeney announced that David Tepper — the hedge fund billionaire who moved to Florida in 2015, taking more than $100 million in unrealized income tax revenue with him — had returned to the Garden State.

The news came right as Sen. Joe Pennacchio (R-Morris) was in a floor speech using Tepper as an example of how the wealthy were fleeing New Jersey’s high taxes. Sweeney interrupted him.

“He called me and told me. He said you’ve got an extra $120 million coming from me,” Sweeney said.

I checked with Sweeney’s staff and and confirmed that Sweeney, who knows Tepper, wasn’t kidding. Tepper’s hedge fund — which as far as I know is still headquartered in Miami Beach — didn’t respond to my request for comment.

This is a lesson in how we need to check our assumptions. (My own assumption here is that Sweeney heard Tepper correctly). Tepper never publicly cited taxes as the reason he decided to domicile in Florida instead of New Jersey. Pundits, Republican lawmakers and others assumed it was because Florida, unlike New Jersey, has no state income tax. They ignored the first article on his departure, from Bloomberg, that cited taxes as “a factor” in his decision but that “family and quality-of-life considerations carried much more weight, as Tepper had recently separated from his wife in New Jersey and his mother and sister both live in Florida.” Media outlets went with the assumption as well. “N.J.’s richest man until he fled for lower taxes, Trump critic David Tepper buying Panthers,” read a 2018 headline from NJ Advance Media.

If high taxes were Tepper’s main reason for leaving, it made no sense for him to depart when millionaires tax opponent Republican Chris Christie was in office, then return when Phil Murphy — whose pet cause has been the millionaires tax — took power.

Will the millionaires tax drive some rich people out of state? I don’t know. But in this case — probably the single most cited example of the rich fleeing New Jersey’s high taxes — it’s clear that the threat of it didn’t.

Don’t you think?

WHERE’S MURPHY?: In Trenton for a coronavirus press conference at 1 p.m. Media: WOND at 8:10 a.m., and Fox 29 at 8:30 a.m.

CORONAVIRUS TRACKER: 588 newly-diagnosed cases for a total of 201,552. Ten more deaths for a total of 14,300. (Not counting 1,791 probable days).

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I’m told we have a message from the Senate. Everybody please brace themselves.” — Assemblymember John Burzichelli (D-Gloucester) while temporarily presiding over the Assembly Thursday.

QUOTE WITH AS MANY METAPHORS AS ONE CAN FIT IN IT OF THE DAY: “The band is playing on and the Titanic is sinking. The governor has clearly been using COVID-19 as a Trojan Horse to usher in unnecessary deficit borrowing. The Democrats in this Legislature weren’t satisfied with a Trojan Horse. They ballooned the borrowing and now we have a Trojan elephant. It’s not very well-disguised. You can see the orgy of pork, a fake surplus and promised rebates staring out of its smirking, corpulent mouth.” — State Sen. Michael Testa

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Assemblymember Paul Moriarty, Komjathy & Kean’s Al Komjathy, NJDEP’s Gene Chebra. Saturday for FSHC’s Jennifer Mancusio, attorney Sal Anderton. Sunday for attorney David Catuogno

THAT’S ALL FOLKS — Legislature passed $32.7B budget Republicans say is loaded with ‘pork,’ by POLITICO’s Katherine Landergan: The Democrat-controlled New Jersey Legislature on Thursday gave final approval to a $32.7 billion, nine-month spending plan that relies on tax hikes for the wealthy and corporations as well as $4.5 billion in borrowing to balance the books in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Republicans decried the spending plan for being filled with “pork” at a time when the state should be practicing fiscal restraint, citing the inclusion of money for things like golf programs and town hall renovations. Democrats defended the agreement as one that will help low- and middle-income families. The budget includes Gov. Phil Murphy’s long-sought millionaire’s tax, which Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin (D-Middlesex) and Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester) agreed to in exchange for providing nearly 800,000 New Jersey families with rebates of up to $500, although the checks won’t arrive in the mail until next summer.

BAG-A-BOND — New Jersey lawmakers approve nation’s strictest ban on plastic, paper bags, by POLITICO’s Samantha Maldonado: A long-stalled measure to reduce single-use waste in New Jersey is all but in the bag. The state Assembly on Thursday approved and sent to Gov. Phil Murphy’s desk a bill, NJ S864 (20R), which bans plastic and paper bags, as well as polystyrene food containers, and limits the availability of plastic straws. The legislation is the nation’s strictest, most far-reaching effort, and marks the first and only state-level prohibition on paper bags. Polystyrene food containers and plastic and paper bags will phase out 18 months from the bill’s effective date, meaning grocery stores, for example, would not be allowed to offer those bags for free or for purchase. Instead, businesses may offer reusable bags with stitched — not glued — handles made from hemp, fabric, polypropylene or PET nonwoven fabric.

DUDE, WHERE’S MY LAW? — With just a little over a month to go before the election, support for legalizing weed is still high. How high? The third Brach Eichler Cannabis Poll — commissioned by the eponymous law firm, which has a cannabis practice, shows support for legalization at 65 percent. Twenty-nine percent oppose. (The firm sent me the full poll — questions, crosstabs and all, though not all of it for public consumption). The poll of 501 likely voters was conducted by DKC Analytics from Sept. 8 through Sept. 16 and is pretty similar to the previous two polls. Seventy percent of voters said they were aware of the ballot question, but 75 percent haven’t seen an ad for or against it. Results are less lopsided with other questions related to weed, like how people feel about communities having the right to bar sales within their borders (pretty much evenly split) and consumption lounges (47 percent to 39 percent in support. “Along with the growth in Republican sentiment in favor of adult use cannabis, we also see that the support is solid and consistent, but we have yet to see the impact of ad campaigns for-and-against legalization,’’ Charles X. Gormally, co-chair of the firm’s cannabis practice, said in a statement. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

CHRISTIE’S MORTAL KOMBAT FINISHING MOVE — “Chris Christie once threatened to sit on Mike Bloomberg, memoir claims,” by The New York Post’s Bernadette Hogan: “The asinine threat is alleged in former governor David Paterson’s dishy new memoir, ‘Black, Blind & in Charge.’ It was July 8, 2010. Paterson was leading New York and Christie was the Garden State’s top exec as they awaited the arrival of Queen Elizabeth at Ground Zero, where the royal was to lay a wreath. Then-New York City Mayor Bloomberg had yet to arrive, and Christie was seething about the city honcho, Paterson recounts … Christie was definitely not OK with it. ‘Well I’m not putting up with it this time,’ Paterson remembers Christie snapping. ‘If he tries it today, I want you to trip him and I’m gonna sit on him,’ Christie plotted. ‘Christie was pissed,’ Paterson remembers in the book.”

BREAKING: ANTI-VAXXERS STILL OPPOSE VACCINES — “Vaccine opponents fear ‘twindemic’ of COVID and flu will prompt mandates,” by NJ Spotlight’s Lilo H. Stainton: “Concern about a potential autumn ‘twindemic’ of COVID-19 and influenza has led a handful of Democratic lawmakers to call for a state mandate that New Jersey students of all ages — from preschool through college — be immunized against the flu … But these proposals have sparked concerns for some people worried about what they see as an overdependence on vaccines. Among other things, opponents of the mandate proposal in New Jersey insist flu shots aren’t necessary, given all the coronavirus precautions in place this year. ‘Everything we are currently doing to prevent the spread of COVID-19 will also prevent the spread of other viruses,’ said Sue Collins, a co-founder of the New Jersey Coalition for Vaccination Choice … The coalition was among those who organized the opposition that massed last fall and eventually derailed a separate initiative to eliminate religious exemptions to the state’s school vaccine requirements.”

WHY DIDN’T JAMEL HOLLEY MODERATE? — Fauci: New Jersey well positioned to navigate second Covid wave in fall, winter, by POLITICO’s Sam Sutton: New Jersey is well positioned to navigate spikes Covid-19 cases that will likely occur throughout the fall and winter, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Thursday. Fauci, speaking during a Facebook Live event hosted by Gov. Phil Murphy, said the state’s ability to stave off flare-ups of the virus since the spring should allow the governor to gradually unwind rules limiting businesses, schools and the economy in the coming months. “The thing that makes me very pleased and encouraged about New Jersey is that, notwithstanding that you got hit pretty badly, right now if you continue to carefully and prudently reopen the economy, you can get through the fall and the winter,” said Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert.

DOMESTIC WORKERS — “‘We’re afraid’: NJ domestic workers describe exploitation, call for bill of rights,” by The Asbury Park Press’ Michael L. Diamond: “New Jersey domestic workers — housekeepers, nannies and home health aides — say they lack basic protections in the workplace and are calling on the state to enact legislation to protect them. Some workers have lost out on wages they are owed. Others have been hurt or sexually [harassed] on the job. And the mostly foreign-born labor force worry that they will be arrested or deported if they report the violations. ‘Very urgently, we need a bill of rights,’ said Mirian Mijanos, 50, of Freehold, a housekeeper who left one job, she said, after she was sexually harassed. Mijanos and other domestic workers spoke Wednesday following the release of a survey conducted by the Rutgers Center for Women & Work, part of the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. They are part of a fast-growing segment of the workforce that long has been vulnerable to exploitation, researchers say. But now they face a new challenge, the novel coronavirus, that is putting them in harm’s way.”

I HOPE THEY DON’T KILL THE ARC TUNNEL — “Big projects could be slashed from Port Authority budget as coronavirus batters travel revenues,” by NJ Advance Media’s Larry Higgs: “The agency has requested $3 billion in federal aid from the next CARES act to recoup revenue losses and officials warned that mega-projects not currently under construction could face a budgetary axe. The authority has ‘three hard months’ to get through, said Kevin O’Toole, board chairman. ‘In 6 days we’ll enter last quarter of 2020 and some significant and hard decisions have to be made for next 24 months to get agency back on its feet,’ he said. But officials were silent about how those decisions could play out for projects, customers or employees, when asked for details … The only given is that ongoing construction projects of a new Terminal One at Newark Liberty and LaGuardia airports will be completed, which includes building new AirTrains at both airports, Cotton said.”

—Nursing home staffing ratio bill heads to Murphy’s desk

—Bill to allow early release for many New Jersey prisoners reaches Murphy’s desk

—“Monmouth GOP files suit against Murphy administration over election rules”

—“Camping overnight and buying spots in line: An inside look at ‘disaster’ lines at NJ MVC”

—Senate passes bill to make pandemic-related records public

—Coughlin: “Middle-class parents need that $500 rebate check”

—Mulshine: “The taxpayers are getting Zoomed on the state budget”

WAS IT CALLED ‘DAVID TEPPER PLAZA’? — “Becchi says high taxes forced Hanover businesses to close, but they left because of redevelopment,” by New Jersey Globe’s Nikita Biryukov: “Republican House candidate Rosemary Becchi took aim at Democratic tax practices Wednesday, blaming them for closures at a shopping plaza off route 10. ‘Our towns were once bustling economic centers filled with lots of activity at our local and small businesses. Now, entire strip malls like this one lay vacant,’ she said in an 88-second-long Twitter video … But stores in Whippany’s Pine Plaza aren’t shutting down because their owners faced an unsurmountable tax burden. They’re closing because the plaza is being redeveloped.”

—Snowflack: “Race of the year: Gottheimer versus Van Drew”

—“40 days before 2020 election, Van Drew has not yet captured the essence of social media”

—“Former Bergen County Judge Andrew Napolitano faces second sexual assault claim”

—Moran: “His lie exposed, Kean chooses to stick with it”

THE ICEMAN PROSECUTOR COMETH — “Gov. Murphy picks NJ Turnpike Authority lawyer as next Morris County Prosecutor,” by The Daily Record’s Svetlana Shkolnikova: “Gov. Phil Murphy will nominate Robert Carroll, the top lawyer at the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, to serve as the next Morris County Prosecutor. Carroll would replace outgoing Morris County Prosecutor Fredric Knapp, who announced his retirement last month amid controversy over racial inequalities in the criminal justice system. Carroll will serve as acting Morris County Prosecutor beginning on Oct. 13, pending approval by the state Senate … Carroll, a veteran attorney with 40 years of experience, previously served as a state assistant attorney general, acting prosecutor in Sussex County and assistant prosecutor at the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office. As chief of the Attorney General Office’s Organized Crime and Racketeering Task Force, Carroll led investigations of corruption and major criminal enterprises. The unit convicted major mob figures under his tenure, including Richard Kuklinski, a murderer and hitman known as ‘The Iceman.’”

HOW THE HELL, HOWELL? — “Howell wouldn’t say why its community development director was absent. Now he’s resigned,” by The Asbury Park Press’ Alex N. Gecan: “The township’s director of community development resigned Sept. 6. But what his relationship with the township had been for the months leading up to his departure are a mystery on which nobody seems willing to shed any light. James R. Herrman, 40, of Farmingdale, continued to receive his six-figure salary until his departure, according to records the Asbury Park Press obtained through an open public records request. For much of that time he also received a stipend for his role as deputy township manager. But his name vanished from the township’s website sometime over the summer, he stopped attending public meetings in February and township officials declined to confirm his employment status for months leading up to his resignation. Herrman himself declined to comment for this story when an Asbury Park Press reporter went to his home in August, and he has not replied to follow-up messages requesting comment. In an August email Township Manager Brian Geoghegan would not clarify Herrman’s employment status, saying the township would not comment on ‘personnel issues.’ But in a follow-up phone interview Wednesday he said, “I will confirm that it was not a disciplinary issue by any means.”

TOMS RIVER COUNCIL DISCUSSES THE MOST PRESSING ISSUES — “Why was Toms River councilman censured for ‘improper, unethical, irresponsible conduct’?” by The Asbury Park Press’ Jean Mikle: “Councilman Daniel Rodrick is in the thick of it again. The Republican has been censured for a third time by his Township Council colleagues, this time for taking a photo from the dais of Richard Ciullo, a Seaside Heights resident and founder of the controversial Rise Up Ocean County Facebook page and website. At a chaotic council meeting Tuesday, Rodrick repeatedly interrupted Assistant Township Attorney Anthony Merlino, who was attempting to read the resolution censuring the councilman into the official record … The latest resolution censuring Rodrick — and demanding his resignation — accuses the councilman of photographing Ciullo from his seat on the dais at the Aug. 25 council meeting, and then sending the photos to ‘certain social media sites,’ where they were ‘maliciously photoshopped to denigrate this particular citizen.’”

WITH SO MUCH DRAMA IN THE LBI IT’S KINDA HARD BEING SCOTT COLABE-DOUBLE-L-A — “Some voters in Ocean County got mail-in ballots for the wrong town,” by NJ 101.5’s Dan Alexander: “Several dozen Point Pleasant residents received the wrong mail-in ballots from the Ocean County Clerk’s Office. Ocean County Clerk Scott Colabella said it was due to ‘human error’ that happened when workers were putting ballots in envelopes in the clerk’s office. Colabella said 73 ballots with Long Beach candidates were incorrectly sent to Point Pleasant. Of those, 34 ballots have been returned. Those ballots are a fraction of the 14,605 voters in Point Pleasant.”

—“Trenton creates office to help formerly incarcerated residents with employment”

—“[Penns Grove] Vice principal’s text messages to student were ‘inappropriate,’ mom says in lawsuit”

—“Cumberland corrections officers in court over layoffs, claim freeholders never voted”

—“Youths mock George Floyd’s death with monkey mask, MAGA hat in latest racist incident at N.J. school”

—“Judge allows Cape May ballots to be mailed out after challenge to delay and reprint”

—“Trenton council’s fired attorney bows out of legal drama over terminated contract”

R.I.P. — “Former Newark Archbishop John J. Myers dies at 79,” by NJ Advance Media’s Kelly Heyboer: “Former Newark Archbishop John J. Myers, who spent 15 years leading more than a million New Jersey Catholics, died Thursday. He was 79. Myers took over as head of the Archdiocese of Newark in 2001, just as the region was dealing with the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He stayed until 2017, after he reached the church’s mandatory retirement age and submitted his resignation to Pope Francis … Though he was praised by some for strong, conservative leadership of the state’s largest diocese, Myers also drew criticism during his tenure for his handling of priests accused of abusing children and what some viewed as excessive spending on his church-funded retirement home. He was also known for writing in his free time, co-authoring ‘Space Vulture,’ a science fiction book with childhood friend Gary Wolf, the creator of Roger Rabbit, in 2008.”

—“Rutgers receives $15 million grant for global racial justice institute”

—“Is Bon Jovi’s socially conscious album ‘2020’ a new chapter for the band?”