Just one day after winning the special Senate election, Cory Booker made an appearance with Gov. Chris Christie. Despite Christie being a member of the Republican party and running against Democratic nominee Barbara Buono in the gubernatorial race, Booker told NJ Today Reporter David Cruz that it’s not about politics when it comes to serving the city of Newark.
“It’s not about politics,” said Booker. “That’s why people are gonna elect us, to be about politics. And I’m still the mayor of Newark for about a matter of number days but I’m gonna use every last second that I have in terms of service to the city. So we’re bringing in a another supermarket to the city of Newark, yet another breaking of a food dessert, and so here you got this great flow of economic developments. I can’t stop that. I want to keep it coming and the governor is a partner in that, so as long as I’m mayor I’m going to continue to do what I have to do to bring jobs to the city.”
Now that Booker has been elected senator, he says that he spoke to the vice president and asked when he is going to be sworn in. Booker is working along with him on the details to begin his term and is focusing on his working relationship with Sen. Robert Menendez.
As the new junior senator, Booker has the ambition to learn from Menendez and others so he can be effective as the months go on.
Booker and Menendez are the first two U.S. senators from New Jersey that are members of minority groups. Along with Hawaii, New Jersey will be the second state in the country with minority senators, something that has begun to sunk in for Booker.
“It’s sunk in absolutely,” said Booker. “My parents and grandparents have put things like that in perspective to me for a long time that you know, we’re achieving. My generation, we’re achieving things that were dangerous to articulate many decades ago. But the one thing I have to say that I love about Jersey is, there are people in my circle, personal circle that said, ‘Oh it’s going to be a big issue, a black guy running around the state,’ and it wasn’t.”
Booker said he can’t think of times when his race was brought up and that it’s a tribute to New Jersey and how people didn’t care about the color of his skin but more about what he could do for the state.
Heading into his final days as mayor, Booker said it’s bittersweet and that it has been one of the greatest honors of his life until being elected to the Senate. There’s still work to do in Newark and he said he won’t forget about it, but he looks forward to being part of New Jersey’s fight on a federal level.