by Alan Steinberg
Article
first appeared on PolitickerNJ.com on
February 26, 2009 - 1:14am.
Jim Florio served as Governor of New Jersey from 1990 to 1994, and was a Congressman
from 1974 to 1990. |
"During the 1960s, the late conservative
polemicist, William F. Buckley once
referred to his relationship with Harvard
liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith
as one of his significant "transideological
relationships". In the course of my tenure as Regional Administrator
of Region 2 U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) during the Bush administration from September, 2005
until January 20, 2009, I was fortunate to develop a similar transideological
and transparty friendship with former New Jersey Governor Jim Florio.
It was certainly never as intimate as the Buckley - Galbraith relationship,
but a warm friendship nevertheless, one I am proud to have.
This relationship developed from an initial meeting in my office
at Region 2 EPA in the summer of 2006. Throughout my tenure, I felt
that it was essential for me to reach out to both leading Republican
and Democrat players on environmental issues, together with stakeholders
in the nongovernmental environmental organizations, business associations,
and academic community as well. I viewed my meeting with Jim Florio
as an opportunity to receive input on regional matters from the leading
political player on environmental issues in the Region during the
last three decades.
The meeting was scheduled for one hour, but it lasted, at my request,
for nearly two hours. Talking with Florio was like having a conversation
with an environmental and energy encyclopedia. I know of nobody on
the current American political scene who has the breadth and depth
of Jim Florio on these two clusters of issues.
His advice was valuable, and even when we disagreed on issues, we
still found plenty of common ground. The initial meeting led to subsequent
dinners, where we discussed the entire gamut of American and New
Jersey political issues. Florio is an authentic intellectual. We
share a common pursuit of voracious reading of new books on American
history and current events. If I were to name the ten Americans,
outside of family members, with whom I would most like to have dinner,
Jim Florio would definitely make my list.
All that I have said heretofore will shock Republicans and Democrats
alike who have known me through three decades of political and governmental
activity. For a Republican like me who grew up in my early adult
years in the rough-and-tumble of Camden County politics, Jim Florio
was the ultimate Democrat archenemy. In 1981, I was an active volunteer
in the gubernatorial campaign of Tom Kean, and when the contest with
Florio led to a recount, I was involved there as well. I served on
the Assembly Republican staff in 1992 and 1993, and much of my service
there involved political combat with the Florio administration. In
the 1993 gubernatorial campaign of Christie Whitman, once again Jim
Florio was the adversary. So a number of my Republican friends will
read this article with a total sense of disbelief.
When one gets to know Jim Florio as I have, however, you can no
longer regard him as New Jersey's Darth Vader. My career in public
service is at an end, and I now am in the postpartisan era of my
life. I certainly retain my loyalty to the Republican Party and a
conservative economic and social philosophy. But partisanship is
not paramount at this stage in my life, and now that I know Florio
from a different vantage point, it is incumbent upon me to reassess
him.
As an EPA Regional Administrator, I was able to achieve my most
significant accomplishments in both New York and New Jersey due to
the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and
Liability Act, passed in 1980 and known in common parlance as Superfund.
The person who authored this legislation and achieved its passage
was a member of the United States House of Representatives from New
Jersey, Congressman Jim Florio. This legislation made it possible
for EPA and its state delegates as well to compel polluters to clean
up and restore to beneficial use contaminated land and bodies of
water throughout our nation. In cases where no solvent polluter
existed with regard to the specific contaminated property, Superfund
provided the financing for government to accomplish the remediation.
New York and New Jersey, since the enactment of Superfund, have
normally been at or near the top of the Superfund National Priority
List (NPL) in terms of numbers of Superfund sites. Accordingly, there
are few federal statutes that have benefited Region 2 EPA and the
Garden State in particular more than Superfund.
I found Superfund to be the most effective
item in my environmental tool kit as
Regional Administrator, and I am sure
my predecessors felt the same way.
If Jim Florio accomplished nothing
else in his career other than the authorship
and passage of Superfund, I would say,
in my Hebrew vernacular, Dayenu - meaning "it
would have been sufficient." Indeed,
Superfund was sufficient in itself
to entitle Jim Florio to a position
of greatness, not only in New Jersey
history but in American history as
well. Every time EPA or any state in
our nation accomplishes a successful
Superfund cleanup, a debt of gratitude
is owed to Jim Florio.
This was not, however the only legacy
Jim Florio has given New Jersey.
During his gubernatorial administration,
my major criticisms of Florio were
1) the 1990 enactment of his income
and sales tax increases; and 2) the
passage in that same year of the assault
weapons ban. As a free market, low
tax conservative, and as a strong defender
of Second Amendment rights, I still
disagree with the former governor on
both these measures. Our disagreement,
however, is ideological, and only history
can determine in such matters who was
right or wrong.
There were, however, two laudatory
precedents that Jim Florio did set
in his administration for future governors
to follow.
The first was undeniable: Florio was
a political figure of rare courage.
Regardless of my disagreement with
him on taxes and Second Amendment rights
as mentioned above, Jim Florio displayed
admirable adherence to principle and
values in knowingly risking defeat
at the polls on both issues. In short,
unlike many other governors, Florio
was not afraid to make the tough calls.
This former boxer was a tenacious and
worthy opponent for his political adversaries.
The other was a legacy of bipartisan
cooperation with the post-1991 Republican
majorities in the Assembly, led by
the then Assembly Speaker Garabed "Chuck" Haytaian,
and in the Senate, led by the then
Senate President Don DiFrancesco. This
statehouse Era of Good Feeling lasted
from after the budget wars of June,
1992 until the end of the legislative
session in June, 1993. After the Republican-controlled
legislature overrode Florio's veto
of the sales tax cut and the Republican
sponsored Fiscal Year 1993 budget in
June, 1992, the governor set aside
the intense partisanship that had characterized
his administration up to that point
and through cooperation with the Republican
legislative majorities achieved success
in a sound education funding structure
and state budget for Fiscal Year 1994,
together with reforms in health insurance
and charity care. Given Florio's history
of partisanship, this surprised many
people who closely followed his political
career, me included.
In fact, it was his partisanship that
cost Jim Florio what would have been
a landmark accomplishment in education
funding cost control. As part of his
Quality Education Act, in 1990, Florio
proposed simultaneously increasing
education aid to most school districts
while shifting from the state to the
school districts the responsibility
for funding pensions. This pension
shift would have caused local school
districts to be much tougher in bargaining
with their respective local unions.
Combined with the increase in aid to
the districts, the pension shift would
have at long last controlled the upward
spiral in public education cost in
New Jersey and thereby contained property
tax increases in the Garden State as
well. Florio would have been recorded
in New Jersey history as the governor
who at long last resolved the property
tax issue.
Such a measure as the pension shift,
however, could only be enacted and
maintained through bipartisan cooperation
with the then Republican minorities
in the legislature. Governor Florio
had to know that the New Jersey Education
Association (NJEA) would fight this
tooth and nail, and he would only be
able to overcome their resistance if
he had the support of Republicans as
well. Instead, Florio ignored the Republicans,
and while he achieved passage of the
pension shift in 1990, it was set aside
by the Democratic-controlled legislature
in 1991 as a result of enormous NJEA
pressure. The NJEA gave their support
to the Republicans in the legislative
elections of 1991 in which the Republicans
won veto-proof majorities. That was
an election in which the two major
interest groups propelling Republican
victory were the NJEA and the National
Rifle Association (NRA). Talk about
an unlikely combination.
I regard the pension shift as one
of two major mistakes Florio made in
his political career. The other was
his anti-Ronald Reagan rhetoric in
the final weeks of his 1981 gubernatorial
campaign against Tom Kean. Reagan was
then a popular President in New Jersey,
and Florio's ideological beliefs overcame
his normally excellent political instincts,
thereby costing him the governorship
in an election campaign in which he
led up until the very last week.
It must be said, however, that the
1981 campaign is another positive Florio
legacy. Both Tom Kean and Jim Florio
are individuals of superb intellect,
and the 1981 campaign stands out as
the last time in New Jersey in which
both gubernatorial candidates discussed
issues at the highest level of insight
and creativity. As Al Felzenberg stated
in his book, Governor Tom Kean: From
the New Jersey Statehouse to the 9-11
Commission, both Kean and Florio "would
refer to their momentous and fateful
square-off as New Jersey's last 'high-minded
campaign'".
Tom Kean would win the 1981 gubernatorial
campaign and become the most successful
governor of New Jersey in the 20th
century and a superb chair of the 9-11
Commission. He remains one of the people
I most admire in public life, a rare
combination of greatness and goodness.
My reassessment of Florio has resulted
in my recognizing his place of greatness
in New Jersey history. Through our
friendship, I now know Jim Florio to
be a person of goodness as well.
Alan J. Steinberg served as Regional Administrator of Region 2 EPA during the
administration of former President George W. Bush. Region 2 EPA consists of the
states of New York and New Jersey, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the U.S.
Virgin Islands, and seven federally recognized Indian nations.
Alan Steinberg can be reached via email
at Asteinberg613@comcast.net ."
Governor James J. Florio is a founding
partner of Florio Perrucci Steinhardt
and Fader. In that capacity, he is the
chair of the firm's Environmental Group
as well as the Government and Regulatory
Affairs Group. James J. Florio served
as Governor of the State of New Jersey
from 1990 to 1994. He is currently a Senior
Fellow at the John J. Heldrich Center
for Workforce Development at Rutgers University.
For more information, please visit
our website at www.florioperrucci.com .
James J. Florio