You think you know Jim Florio? Did you know his father committed suicide so as not to be a financial burden on the family? Did you know he had a gay younger brother who died of AIDS? Those personal setbacks are revealed right up front in Florio’s autobiography, called “Standing on Principle.”
At a recent event organized by the New Jersey State Bar Association, Florio said writing the book had forced him to think about his life, starting with his parents.
“Both my parents were working class people. Neither of them graduated from high school. My father was a shipyard worker, industrious, a little rough-edged guy. He was a gambler. I’m not a gambler for money, but I’m a gambler in the sense he was. He was a real gambler. After the second world war, we lived off his poker winnings for 18 months when the shipyard closed. He never read a newspaper; he read the daily racing form. One of the highlights of his life was when I was elected in Congress, made friends with a congressman from Kentucky and got him two tickets to the Kentucky Derby. He drove my mother to Kentucky to go to the Kentucky Derby, so he was a real gambler. And as I said, I’m like my mother in the sense I’m frugal, I don’t spend money frequently so I don’t gamble for money. But I’ve gambled against the odds a lot of times and for different things so I take that from my father. My mother was a very meek, but hard, woman. Books — she always had her nose in a book. I’m her, in terms of books,” Florio said.
Interviewed by well-known attorney Angelo Genova, Florio said his whole adult life has been about public policy. People have to engage and inform themselves, he often says.
“It’s one of the themes of the book, that the system of democracy doesn’t work unless we all work at making it work. So people have to become engaged, and real people. If you think about it, the major social movements in this country have been movements — the civil rights movement, environmental movement, women’s rights movement. A movement entails having real, average people fully engaged in the process, and they have to be informed about the process as well. Informed because the problem’s becoming more complex, and to make decisions, real people, average people, have to understand what the alternatives are,” he said.
He wouldn’t comment on how he would advise Gov. Phil Murphy, but did offer a small tip.
“Some of the controversy I see going on between different factions are really not matters of principle, they’re matters that should be resolved. If I want to tax marijuana at 12 percent, and you want to tax is at 25 percent, you don’t have to be a statesman, you have to be able to add, subtract and divide. So it’s not a big deal, you get over little things and resolve them,” he said.
He said America has always been about upward mobility and we can’t afford to lose that.
“The new bad people are immigrants — Mexicans, particularity — Muslims, gay people, whatever. That is an unhealthy situation. It’s a clear answer, in terms of my view. We have to make sure we restore opportunities for people to get ahead, upward mobility. When you do that people will have normal lives, normal lives preclude scapegoating, that sort of thing. That seems to be so obvious that I don’t understand why we don’t understand why a society becomes corrupted when it becomes immobile,” Florio said.
Without mentioning names, he continued his critique of Washington today.
“What’s going on in Washington now is so tremendously offensive, should be offensive to anybody who has a sense of dignity, a sense of bringing people together, a sense of not trying to tear people apart. As Americans, we should almost be forming a movement to bring back some sensitivity to what are the principles, the values that we have built into our creed and start making sure we restore them from the highest levels down,” said Florio.
The book has been out for seven months. We asked the former governor how it’s doing.
“Actually it’s been doing very well. It’s not going to be a best-seller, but the people who have seen it in New Jersey have enjoyed it. It’s very satisfying,” he said.
Angelo Genova, who was one of Florio’s lawyers in the 1981 recount against Tom Kean, calls him iconic.
“The title of this book, “Standing For Principle” is very much about this man. And what we heard from him today reinforces that he was a great governor in his time, and quite frankly, would be a great governor today,” Genova said.
The book includes Florio’s favorite quote. It comes from the eulogy over the dead body of the hero in a Steinbeck novel: “This guy didn’t want nothing for himself, he didn’t want nothing for himself!” It seems appropriate for Florio.
