by Matt Friedman // The Star Ledger
TRENTON — The deal that was supposed to end the long political fight over judicial appointments in Essex County hit a big roadblock today.
Senate Democrats said Gov. Chris Christie has withdrawn all eight judicial nominations, made less than two weeks ago, after the Senate Judiciary Committee today delayed a vote on one of them: David Cohen, Christie’s former director of employee relations.
At issue was a letter written by a former staffer in Christie’s administration that suggested that Cohen did not do enough to investigate her allegation that her former boss at the Center for Hispanic Policy, Research and Development improperly entered data in scoring applications for grant money.
The staffer, Mariella Morales, also claimed she was subject to harassment and a hostile work environment at the center.
Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) said that during the committee's lunch break, her office received a call from Morales saying that she was not aware Cohen’s nomination was being considered today and that she wanted to testify. So the committee rescheduled Cohen’s hearing for July 10. The committee then decided to reschedule all the nominations that were supposed to be heard today, including the other seven Essex County judicial nominees.
But instead, Christie sent the Senate notice that he was withdrawing all of the Essex nominations.
The move sparked a heated argument on the Senate floor.
State Sen. Nia Gill (D-Essex), a member of the judiciary committee, said Christie's move was a "direct assault on the integrity of this institution."
"We didn’t say hold up Mr. Cohen indefinitely. We said bring everybody back on the 10th, including Ms. Morales," Gill said. "And because I will not capitulate to denying Ms. Morales the right to testify in public, the governor has exercised his power and today has removed and withdrawn his nominations for every single Essex County judge that was there."
The nominations had been a breakthrough after years of fighting between Christie and Senate Democrats. The Essex County courts – the busiest in the state – have 21 vacancies.
Morales’s allegations were first made nearly two years ago but only surfaced publicly at the beginning of today’s hearing, when the judiciary committee took up Cohen’s nomination.
Morales wrote to the committee on June 21 to oppose Cohen, saying she met with him and Matt McDermott, then-chief of staff to Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, at a diner in September 2012 to discuss “the circumstances that left me with no choice but to resign from the administration.”
Morales wrote that she was initially denied unemployment benefits after her resignation, but upon appeal was granted them when she provided the “exact documentation and reasons for my resignation as I did in my meeting with Messrs. Cohen and McDermott.”
“I find it most ironic that Mr. Cohen – Governor Christie’s Director of Employer Relations, at the time – the person charged with specifically dealing with labor laws and employment matters, was apparently unable to discern any wrong doing on the part of a member of Christie’s Administration,” Morales wrote in her letter. “The same Administration staffer whose actions were seemingly found by the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development Unemployment and Disability Insurance Services Tribunal to contribute to the hostile work conditions I unfortunately endured.”
State Sen. Kevin O'Toole said that committee members should have looked into the allegations on when they received the letter nine days ago.
“When I received that letter, I called the nominee and had a lengthy discussion with him. I then picked up the phone and called another participant, Mr. McDermott,and had another discussion with him. I did my due diligence," O'Toole said. "I was satisfied after I had those discussions that what was being alleged was not the truth.”
O'Toole said Cohen was "a casual and innocent bystander asked to attend this meeting" and that he went "above and beyond" in investigating it.
The Center for Hispanic Policy, Research and Development operates under the Department of State – which is run by Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno – and provides grant funding for Hispanic initiatives, according to its website.
Morales did not go into detail about the allegations. In her September 2012 resignation letter to Christie that she also sent to the committee, she wrote that she had to quit because her “high level of moral and ethical standards” were threatened to be compromised “due to the actions of others” and that she could “no longer continue to work under the purview of the Center’s Executive Director, Abraham Lopez.”
According to Cohen’s testimony today, Morales alleged to him and McDermott that Lopez entered scoring data for grant applications that was supposed to be entered by the center’s volunteer board, who were responsible with reviewing the applications.
“The concern was that Mr. Lopez was… either typing for the board members or entering data as the board members’ evaluations,” Cohen said.
Gill (D-Essex) asked Cohen if Morales alleged that Lopez was “cooking the books” for certain grant recipients.
“I don’t know if it was that extent to cooking the books… But that he was entering for board members,” Cohen said.
But Cohen said he investigated the allegations with his office's attorney and met with Lopez, Lopez’s supervisor and an employee of the state Office of Information Technology.
“What I found out was that that was not occurring,” Cohen said, adding that Lopez did not have the board members’ passwords and that the system showed no signs of being having been tampered with.
“I found that the system was more secure than she had originally described to me, that there were passwords that were not disclosed,” Cohen said. “It was not entered or compromised by Mr. Lopez, therefore the system was secure and the members were entering their data.”
Morales also did not describe her claims of harassment or a hostile work environment, and the committee did not discuss them in detail.
Christie spokesman Kevin Roberts kept his comments brief.
"The judicial package did not go forward as we had planned," Roberts said. "Time now needs to be taken to consider how we proceed."
Senate Democrats said Gov. Chris Christie has withdrawn all eight judicial nominations, made less than two weeks ago, after the Senate Judiciary Committee today delayed a vote on one of them: David Cohen, Christie’s former director of employee relations.
At issue was a letter written by a former staffer in Christie’s administration that suggested that Cohen did not do enough to investigate her allegation that her former boss at the Center for Hispanic Policy, Research and Development improperly entered data in scoring applications for grant money.
The staffer, Mariella Morales, also claimed she was subject to harassment and a hostile work environment at the center.
Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) said that during the committee's lunch break, her office received a call from Morales saying that she was not aware Cohen’s nomination was being considered today and that she wanted to testify. So the committee rescheduled Cohen’s hearing for July 10. The committee then decided to reschedule all the nominations that were supposed to be heard today, including the other seven Essex County judicial nominees.
But instead, Christie sent the Senate notice that he was withdrawing all of the Essex nominations.
The move sparked a heated argument on the Senate floor.
State Sen. Nia Gill (D-Essex), a member of the judiciary committee, said Christie's move was a "direct assault on the integrity of this institution."
"We didn’t say hold up Mr. Cohen indefinitely. We said bring everybody back on the 10th, including Ms. Morales," Gill said. "And because I will not capitulate to denying Ms. Morales the right to testify in public, the governor has exercised his power and today has removed and withdrawn his nominations for every single Essex County judge that was there."
The nominations had been a breakthrough after years of fighting between Christie and Senate Democrats. The Essex County courts – the busiest in the state – have 21 vacancies.
Morales’s allegations were first made nearly two years ago but only surfaced publicly at the beginning of today’s hearing, when the judiciary committee took up Cohen’s nomination.
Morales wrote to the committee on June 21 to oppose Cohen, saying she met with him and Matt McDermott, then-chief of staff to Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, at a diner in September 2012 to discuss “the circumstances that left me with no choice but to resign from the administration.”
Morales wrote that she was initially denied unemployment benefits after her resignation, but upon appeal was granted them when she provided the “exact documentation and reasons for my resignation as I did in my meeting with Messrs. Cohen and McDermott.”
“I find it most ironic that Mr. Cohen – Governor Christie’s Director of Employer Relations, at the time – the person charged with specifically dealing with labor laws and employment matters, was apparently unable to discern any wrong doing on the part of a member of Christie’s Administration,” Morales wrote in her letter. “The same Administration staffer whose actions were seemingly found by the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development Unemployment and Disability Insurance Services Tribunal to contribute to the hostile work conditions I unfortunately endured.”
State Sen. Kevin O'Toole said that committee members should have looked into the allegations on when they received the letter nine days ago.
“When I received that letter, I called the nominee and had a lengthy discussion with him. I then picked up the phone and called another participant, Mr. McDermott,and had another discussion with him. I did my due diligence," O'Toole said. "I was satisfied after I had those discussions that what was being alleged was not the truth.”
O'Toole said Cohen was "a casual and innocent bystander asked to attend this meeting" and that he went "above and beyond" in investigating it.
The Center for Hispanic Policy, Research and Development operates under the Department of State – which is run by Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno – and provides grant funding for Hispanic initiatives, according to its website.
Morales did not go into detail about the allegations. In her September 2012 resignation letter to Christie that she also sent to the committee, she wrote that she had to quit because her “high level of moral and ethical standards” were threatened to be compromised “due to the actions of others” and that she could “no longer continue to work under the purview of the Center’s Executive Director, Abraham Lopez.”
According to Cohen’s testimony today, Morales alleged to him and McDermott that Lopez entered scoring data for grant applications that was supposed to be entered by the center’s volunteer board, who were responsible with reviewing the applications.
“The concern was that Mr. Lopez was… either typing for the board members or entering data as the board members’ evaluations,” Cohen said.
Gill (D-Essex) asked Cohen if Morales alleged that Lopez was “cooking the books” for certain grant recipients.
“I don’t know if it was that extent to cooking the books… But that he was entering for board members,” Cohen said.
But Cohen said he investigated the allegations with his office's attorney and met with Lopez, Lopez’s supervisor and an employee of the state Office of Information Technology.
“What I found out was that that was not occurring,” Cohen said, adding that Lopez did not have the board members’ passwords and that the system showed no signs of being having been tampered with.
“I found that the system was more secure than she had originally described to me, that there were passwords that were not disclosed,” Cohen said. “It was not entered or compromised by Mr. Lopez, therefore the system was secure and the members were entering their data.”
Morales also did not describe her claims of harassment or a hostile work environment, and the committee did not discuss them in detail.
Christie spokesman Kevin Roberts kept his comments brief.
"The judicial package did not go forward as we had planned," Roberts said. "Time now needs to be taken to consider how we proceed."
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