A longtime South Jersey political boss is making waves this week. George Norcross — the most powerful unelected Democrat in New Jersey — says he’s stepping back from politics. His announcement follows a disastrous 2021 election season that tossed former Senate President Steve Sweeney to the sidelines. Norcross says his nearly three-decade run of the party machine is over. Or is it?
“Steve Sweeney had this sort of unilateral veto power to block powerful judgeships and prosecutors and legislation that would all benefit the south, gone. And not just the south but his affiliates that he collaborated with in Essex county and even in Bergen county, all those political affiliates of the Norcross South Jersey machine, had lost their great pillar,” said Charlie Stile, columnist at NorthJersey.com.
During the Christie days, Norcross and Sweeney and the governor swung their axes all over New Jersey. Pension benefit reforms here, new medical schools there. Tenure reform there. New superintendent and police force over here, often with Camden as the beneficiary. But Norcross has plenty of detractors in the city, like Keith Benson, president of the Camden teachers union, who says Norcross’s interests in the city weren’t all altruistic.
A lot of what has transpired over the past decade or more here has benefited Norcross and his affiliated companies, especially state-funded tax breaks. Just how much and whether that all happened within the law is now the subject of a formal investigation by the state attorney general. Norcross has denied that he benefited illegally, but is the timing related?
