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Lautenberg Endorses Lourdes Correa Timberman; Menendez Hesitates

Published June 6, 2010

THE Bergen County freeholder that Sen. Bob Menendez backed to be the next U.S. Marshal in New Jersey is out of the running, but there’s no sign he and Sen. Frank Lautenberg will agree on someone else soon.

“We just don’t have an agreement,” Menendez said Wednesday. He noted, however, that a looming vacancy in the office could increase the pressure to reach one.

Former Cape May County Sheriff James Plousis has run the marshal’s service, which provides courthouse security and pursues federal fugitives, as a Republican holdover appointee from President George W. Bush’s administration.

But Plousis was nominated last month to chair the state Parole Board. No confirmation hearing has been set in Trenton, but if he’s confirmed there would be a vacancy in a post that pays at least $155,000, according to a document posted on usmarshals.gov.

The U.S. Marshal is nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, but informally the White House considers recommendations from home state senators before making a nomination.

Lautenberg supports Lourdes Timberman Correa, a 21-year agency veteran currently serving as deputy marshal. She would be the first woman to hold the post in New Jersey, and is backed by the state chapter of the Latino Peace Officers Association and the Latino Leadership Alliance.

“I thought she was so qualified I wasn’t expecting any opposition,” said Martin Perez, president of the alliance.

Sarah Thoma, spokeswoman for the peace officers group, said the uncertainty about the next leader “affects the morale of the U.S. Marshal’s Office.”

Menendez had backed Bergen freeholder and Hackensack Police Capt. Tomas Padilla.

“He’s withdrawn his name and we are looking at other candidates,” Menendez said.

He didn’t say why, but Padilla was among several codefendants named in a lawsuit filed in June against Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa that could have been a black mark on Padilla’s file if the New Jersey senators had sent his name over to the White House.

The suit, filed by six current and one recently retired officer, alleges Zisa, a former state assemblyman, used the police department for political gain and pressured officers into making campaign contributions. Zisa called the plaintiffs “disgruntled employees who are unhappy with their assignments.”

The Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association also objected last year when Padilla’s name and Bergen County Sheriff Leo McGuire’s name surfaced as potential candidates, because they had no experience in the marshal’s service.

Menendez would not say if he had a problem with Lautenberg’s candidate.

“I don’t want to talk about any individual. I would just simply say I don’t have an agreement with Sen. Lautenberg, and advise and consent is the responsibility of both senators,” he said.

He noted that he and Lautenberg had been able to reach an agreement to support candidates for United States Attorney and circuit court of appeals.

“At the end of the day, I’m sure we’ll find a way to work it out and find somebody we can agree on,” Menendez said.

THE provision of the recently enacted health insurance overhaul that’s drawing the most heat from critics would be repealed under the Reclaiming Individual Liberty Act, a bill introduced by Rep. Scott Garrett, R-Wantage.

The law says that starting in a few years, people who can afford it but have not bought health insurance have to pay a penalty to cover the cost of medical care they presumably – news releases by supporters of the bill say “inevitably” — would need.

Right now, since hospitals do not turn people away who need treatment, the costs of the uninsured are shifted onto the bills of people with insurance and the government. The idea is if more people are insured, those costs would go down and insurance overall would get cheaper.

The penalty starts at $95 in 2014. By 2016, it’s $695 or 2.5 percent of income, but there would be hardship exemptions and the penalty would be no higher than the cost of a bare-bones insurance plan carrying a steep deductible that would be sold through the new exchange created by the law.

Garrett, and several state attorneys general suing to block the law, say that while the Constitution gives Congress broad powers to regulate interstate commerce, Congress cannot order someone to buy health insurance.

“This moves far beyond regulating economic activity, and into the realm of regulating inactivity,” Garrett said. “If we allow that Congress has this authority under the Constitution, then there is virtually no limit to Washington’s power to micromanage the lives of our citizens.”

His bill, HR 4999, would repeal the mandate.

BOTH Lautenberg and Rep. Steve Rothman, D-Fair Lawn, spoke out last week against proposed budget cuts to the Coast Guard that would eliminate the Marine Safety and Security Team stationed in the New Jersey/New York region.

The two serve on their respective houses’ appropriations committee, and could be able to restore the funds.

“These teams are vital,” Lautenberg told the Coast Guard commandant at a hearing Tuesday.

“If this [team] is decommissioned, the only teams protecting the East Coast will be located in Boston and Miami,” Rothman wrote in a letter Wednesday to the chairman of the homeland security appropriations subcommittee.

Herb Jackson is The Record’s Washington correspondent. Contact him at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this e-mail address). Read Jackson’s blog at tinyurl.com/capgames.