He also serves as Mayor of Orange but he's made no plans to step down from that post either.
"I resigned from the Assembly, effective (today), " Hackett (D-Essex) said in a voicemail message left with a Star-Ledger reporter late Friday night. "Also, I wrote a letter to (Essex County Clerk) Chris Durkin, asking him to remove my name from the ballot," in the upcoming November general election.Steele has not indicated whether he will resign.
Hackett made no comment about whether he plans to also step down as the mayor of Orange.
Earlier Friday, at the Democratic State Committee's annual conference in Atlantic City, top party leaders called for Mims and Alfred Steele (D-Passaic), also arrested in the sting on Thursday, to resign their offices and withdraw their names from the November ballot.
Gov. Jon Corzine was joined by Senate President Richard Codey, Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts and party chairman Joseph Cryan in calling for the two to step down, but Corzine rebuffed as overtly political a Republican demand for a special legislative session to pass ethics reforms.
Also, one has to wonder why the other politicians arrested were not asked to step down from their posts as well. After all, they're implicated in the same kind of criminal activities as the Assemblymen. If the state is truly serious about getting rid of corrupt politicians, they must start by cleaning house of those that have broken the law.
That's why ethics reform in New Jersey is a joke, especially when you consider that many of the politicians already have their hands in multiple cookie jars. Corzine wants you to believe that a special session to consider ethics reform is a political agenda.
No. It is not. Good government is in the taxpayer's best interests, and preventing action on ethics reform stands in opposition to that.
Some Democrats were questioning the timing of the arrests right before the Democratic Party annual conference.
Not surprisingly, there were some Democrats who questioned the motivation, or at least the timing, of Mr. Christie, who headed George W. Bush’s first presidential campaign in New Jersey and who is widely expected to run for governor in 2009.The FBI statement is here.
Assemblyman William D. Payne, a Democrat from Essex County who is running for the State Senate as an independent, noted that the arrests were merely accusations, that the people charged should be presumed innocent, and that “people suspect the timing.”
Some Democrats tried to make the best of the situation with humorous one-liners that have been heard before in New Jersey. A few remarked about not wearing wires, or carrying videotapes.
Others joked about how, given the current pace of accusations coming out of the United States attorney’s office, the 120-member Legislature might not have a quorum when it returns in November for a lame-duck session.
State Senator Sharpe James, the former mayor of Newark, and State Senator Wayne R. Bryant, of Camden County, are awaiting trial on corruption charges, and several other lawmakers have been subpoenaed as part of a reported investigation into special legislative grants.
One person on Friday drew particular attention. With some whispering, “Look who’s here,” Democrats noticed State Senator Joseph Coniglio, from Bergen County, as if he were an uncle who had been invited out of obligation, but whose presence was not exactly embraced.
Mr. Coniglio has been notified by Mr. Christie that he could soon face corruption charges.
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