New Jersey Senate

TRENTON - Democrats in the New Jersey Senate took their first look at Gov. Christie's plan to cut income taxes 10 percent, and the details they got from the Legislature's budget expert confirmed their suspicions: The higher a resident's income, the bigger their tax reduction would be. The biggest winners, if Christie's proposal is enacted, would be the top 1.6 percent of taxpayers, who earn $500,000 or more, David Rosen, the Legislature's chief...

The legal battle over Olympic sprinter Carl Lewis' New Jersey Senate candidacy cost state taxpayers $77,798.19. It cost the Republicans $127,335.50 - with up to $12,000 in bills still pending, according to the lawyer they hired. The bill to Lewis and the Democrats? So far, nothing. That's because Lewis' lawyer, William Tambussi, and the four other lawyers who worked with him over five months volunteered their time, an exception permitted under state election law. Lewis, 50, was stricken from the ballot in the Eighth Legislative District in Burlington County after a federal appeals court agreed with rulings from state and federal courts that he did not meet a four-year state residency requirement to run for the Senate.

After initially refusing to apologize for his sex advice tweets, New Jersey Senate candidate Phil Mitsch sounded a more contrite tone in a statement released early Thursday evening. "I would like to sincerely apologize for any offense I may have caused anyone, particularly women, as a result of a Twitter post that has recently been reported," Mitsch said. He then explained the basis for the controversial tweet he posted Sept. 2 to his more than 44,000 followers: "Women, you increase your odds of keeping your men by being faithful, a lady in the living room and a whore in the bedroom.

As a New Jersey Senate committee considered a raft of economic bills on Sept. 22, business lobbyist David Brogan went before lawmakers to praise their work. "We are encouraged by the fact that we are focusing on jobs," said Brogan, vice president of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association. "It's a very difficult fiscal environment out there and our businesses are hurting. " Noting that the Democratic-controlled Legislature had passed two bills earlier in the year to ease millions in corporate taxes for small businesses and large corporations that sell to national markets, Brogan added, "Some of those [bill]

Legal wrangling over Carl Lewis' eligibility to run for the New Jersey Senate has overshadowed campaign issues for six months, but the Olympian doesn't think it has detracted from his effort. "I think it enhanced it," Lewis, a Democrat, told reporters on the patio of a Westampton sports bar Wednesday morning, the day after a federal appeals panel ruled that his name could appear on the ballot in November. Republicans are considering a last-ditch petition to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit even as the deadline to print the ballots bears down.

Legal wrangling over Carl Lewis' eligibility to run for the New Jersey Senate has overshadowed campaign issues for six months, but the Olympian doesn't think it has detracted from his effort. "I think it enhanced it," Lewis, a Democrat, told reporters on the patio of a Westampton sports bar Wednesday morning, the day after a federal appeals panel ruled that his name could appear on the ballot in November. Republicans are considering a last-ditch petition to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit even as the deadline to print the ballots bears down.

Carl Lewis, 50, of Medford, is a nine-time Olympic gold medalist in track and field and a Democrat locked in a legal tussle over whether he has met residency requirements to run for the New Jersey Senate. The Inquirer's Joelle Farrell caught up with the Willingboro native by phone last week at a fund-raising event for the University of Houston, which he attended. Excerpts are below.   Question: Why do you think that you would be a good state senator? Lewis: I am running because I know that New Jersey can do better.

  Former Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis, running for a Burlington County state Senate seat, was pushed off the November ballot on Tuesday when the state's top elections official refused to certify his candidacy. A federal judge will hold a hearing on the matter Friday afternoon and could reverse the decision by Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, who acted in her capacity as secretary of state. Lewis, 50, a Medford Democrat, has been embroiled in a months-long legal fight over whether he meets the state's residency requirement to run in the Eighth Legislative District.

TRENTON - Gov. Chris Christie says he's not offended by the profanity-laced tirade directed at him by the Democrat who leads the New Jersey Senate. The Republican governor says he and Senate President Stephen Sweeney have "a passionate relationship," so things said in the heat of emotional battle should be forgiven. Sweeney exploded after Christie cut $1.3 billion from the budget Democrats had sent him. The cuts included programs for AIDS patients, sexually abused children and blind students.

TRENTON - A bill was introduced in the New Jersey Senate yesterday that would make it a felony to avoid reporting a death or to wait more than a day before telling authorities that a child has vanished. Last week's acquittal of Casey Anthony, who was charged with murdering her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, sparked the bill. The Florida mother didn't report Caylee's being missing for more than a month, and later said she had died accidentally. New Jersey one of at least 16 states to introduce a version of "Caylee's Law. " The case received cable-television coverage for weeks, and Anthony's acquittal triggered so much frustration by observers that one of her defense attorneys said he fears for her safety when she is released from jail on Sunday.