Senate

TRENTON - The Senate Judiciary Committee approved David Rebuck to be New Jersey's top casino gambling regulator on Thursday. A Senate vote on his nomination will be held Monday. The Moorestown resident has been acting as director of the state Gaming Enforcement Division since last May. A lawyer who served 23 years as a state deputy attorney general, Rebuck had been a senior policy adviser to Gov. Christie. Rebuck's office has overseen streamlining of casino regulations and procedures designed to ease financial and regulatory burdens on the gambling houses while still maintaining the integrity of casino gambling in New Jersey.

The state Senate's top officer said yesterday that all 50 Senate members have declared they are not renting their district offices from firms in which they or their family members have a financial interest. President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati asked all Senate members to disclose any interest in their district offices after The Inquirer reported in July that taxpayers spent $213,000 to rent a district office for Senate Minority Leader Robert J. Mellow (D., Lackawanna) in a building partly owned by his wife and later himself.

U.S. senators found their footing on Friday by crafting a bipartisan compromise on how to proceed with President Clinton's trial. They didn't need to don their gas masks, after all. Following the solemn, ceremonial opening of the trial of William Jefferson Clinton - only the second time, ever, that U.S. senators had been sworn in as jurors in a presidential impeachment trial - the Senate's valued devotion to decorum nearly dissolved....

The Camden County Republicans last night announced their nominees for the freeholder board and sheriff's office but put off word of who will run for the Senate and Assembly in this year's much-anticipated Sixth District race. At last night's meeting in Voorhees, a petition championing Republican Assemblyman John Rocco for the Senate and Thomas Shusted Jr. and Susan R. Rose for the Assembly was strategically placed on one of the meeting room's tables. Shusted is a Haddon Township attorney and Rose a former Camden County registrar of deeds.

Despite its good intentions, the sweeping campaign-finance legislation passed last week by the House ignores two key lessons of U.S. history: Money always finds a way into politics and "reforms" often have unintended consequences. In this case, the proposed changes could ultimately weaken the national political parties, starve their efforts to find and turn out new voters, and divert money and political influence to independent interest groups. It also could cut off money to poorer challengers, leaving millionaires who finance their own campaigns as the only outsiders with a real chance of ousting incumbents.

A state Senate vote has put Pennsylvania one step closer to enacting sensible distracted-driving rules that could safeguard the lives of teen drivers and other motorists. The Senate's approval Wednesday of a bill that will get cellphones out of the hands of all drivers, and limit passengers in teen drivers' cars, isn't the best approach, but it represents substantial progress. Among the provisions, the measure by the lead sponsor, Sen. Robert M. "Tommy" Tomlinson (R., Bucks)

Gov. Casey yesterday renominated Philadelphia lawyer Ida K. Chen to serve as a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge, the same post for which she was rejected by the Senate last year. Chen, 35, is a member of the Philadelphia Human Relations Commission. If confirmed, she would fill the seat of the late Judge Eugene Gelfand, who died in March. Her nomination was rejected by the Senate in October. Casey spokesman Robert Grotevant said the likelihood of Chen's confirmation was better this year because of a "willingness on the part of the Governor's Office and Senate to work together" on nominations.

WASHINGTON - Here is how Philadelphia-area members of Congress voted on major issues last week. The Senate was not in session. Social Security tax cut. Voting 229-193, House Republicans on Tuesday rejected a Senate bill (HR 3630) to extend through February Social Security payroll-tax cuts, long-term unemployment benefits, and current Medicare reimbursement levels for doctors, all paid for by increases in fees charged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The vote embraced a rival House version of the bill that would extend the three measures for one year and pay for them with cuts in domestic spending.

SPEAKING at the annual Chester County Republican dinner is U.S. Labor Secretary Ann Dore McLaughlin (above). She addressed the group Wednesday in Downingtown. At left, Earl Baker (in dark suit) running for state Senate, and Richard T. Schulze, running for Congress, show signs of confidence.