Episode 82: Loretta Weinberg
The Backgrounder
When Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg began attending Port Authority meetings, she began uncovering the scandal that we’ve come to know as “Bridgegate.” On this episode, the incomparable and indomitable Senator Weinberg gives her thought about the upcoming trial, talks about her life as an elected official, her special relationship with Governor Christie, and she gives her advice to any young people who may aspire to fill her shoes.
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Episode 81: Buzz Aldrin
The Backgrounder
Buzz Aldrin, Montclair’s man on the moon, has led an extraordinary life in the years leading up to – and since – his historic voyage on Apollo 11. Just days before he returns to Montclair for the dedication of a middle school in his honor, Aldrin talks about some of his memories of living in Montclair, where President Kennedy originally wanted to send astronauts in the 1960s, and when and how we should be landing on Mars.
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Episode 80: Benjie Wimberly
The Backgrounder
If you don’t know N.J. Assemblyman Benjie Wimberly through his political and government credentials, you almost certainly know him as the legendary football coach who brought Super Bowl Champion Victor Cruz and T.J. Clemmings to the NFL. But even that description falls short of describing the person that Benjie Wimberly has become to the people of Paterson, N.J. (where people call him “Coach” more often than “Assemblyman.”) In this episode, Wimberly talks about football, the roughly 30 years he has spent as a coach, and how he would coach our state’s third largest city to achieving...
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Episode 79: Heather Howard
The Backgrounder
Heather Howard rose to prominence when she served as New Jersey’s State Health and Senior Services Commissioner in Governor Jon Corzine’s administration during the height of the national health care reform debate. Six years after the Affordable Care Act (ACA) a.k.a. “Obamacare” became law, Howard is traveling the country helping states to implement the ACA. She is also on the faculty of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs where she is teaching about the nuanced world of policy making as it relates to health care, and she is an elected...
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Episode 78: Gordon MacInnes
The Backgrounder
Gordon MacInnes, President of New Jersey Policy Perspective, knows Trenton and Jersey politics. He served two terms in the Statehouse, first as an assemblyman and later as a state senator – no small feat for a Democrat who hails from Republican-dominated Morris County. He also served as New Jersey’s Assistant Commissioner of Education and became known as the state’s “Abbott Czar” as he administered New Jersey’s Abbott school funding program. In this episode, MacInnes explains how New Jersey has the option of putting the Transportation Trust Fund and public pension funding liability...
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Episode 77: Student Loan Debt with Deanna Maria Norcross & Vincent Cimilluca
The Backgrounder
School may be out for the summer but New Jersey’s student loan program has come under fire since a July 3 Propublica/New York Times story. “State sanctioned loan sharking” was how one person quote in the story described the state’s Higher Education Student Assistance Authority and its loan program, NJ CLass. In this episode, Deanna Marie Norcross and Vincent Cimilluca talk about their personal connection being saddled with student loan debt in New Jersey, how it’s stunting the future they want to have together, and the activist group they’ve started, desclassifynj, to help find...
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Episode 76: Harry Pozycki
The Backgrounder
Anyone with a political hangover from the past two weeks’ conventions will want to hear from Harry Pozycki, founder and chair of The Citizens Campaign. He has a lot to say about how much power we the people in the cheap seats of government really have, and how we can go about using it. He shares a lot of the knowledge he picked up in his extensive career in public service, during which he held offices including Middlesex County Freeholder and Chair of the Middlesex County Democratic Committee. Whether you believe your political voice has been heard this year or if you feel the whole system...
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Episode 75: Cathleen Lewis
The Backgrounder
Cathleen Lewis holds a unique position in Transportation Trust Fund/Gas Tax debate as Public Affairs Director for the American Automobile Association in New Jersey. While she is a known proponent of raising the gas tax, Lewis offers an argument on how a 23-cents per gallon increase in the gas tax could actually save New Jerseyans from future property taxes increases. A council member of the Township of Lawrence - where she previously served as mayor – Lewis explains what the effects of Governor Christie’s executive order to stop work on the state’s transportation projects have been on...
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Episode 74: Jennifer Beck
The Backgrounder
N.J. Senator Jennifer Beck (R-Monmouth) has been making headlines this year opposing a 23-cents-per-gallon gas tax hike and being among the first Republicans to not support Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy. But there’s much more to Senator Beck. On this episode, Senator Beck gives us her read on the post budgetary climate surrounding the gas tax debate and the Transportation Trust Fund, she provides an update on her work on behalf of those affected by Superstorm Sandy, and she explains how she went from being a physics and math major conducting research at the Goddard Space Flight...
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Episode 73: Julia Sass Rubin
The Backgrounder
Two roads to school reform have diverged in New Jersey and Dr. Julia Sass Rubin of Rutgers University’s Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy isn’t thrilled with the choice. Dr. Rubin explains why neither of the proposals put firth by Governor Christie and Senator Sweeney make the grade, and gives her thoughts on how we should be going about reforming our schools. She also talks about charter schools and their effect on the education of those who don’t attend them. She explains the mission of Save Our Schools NJ, the all-volunteer organization she helped found that is aimed at...
info_outlineScott Gurian is an award-winning journalist who knows no limits when it comes to getting a great story. He helped WNYC score a Peabody Award for his coverage of Superstorm Sandy, and he helped launch NJSpotlight.org’s environmental investigative series “Dirty Little Secrets.” But the lengths he will go to for a great story are soon to surpass several thousand miles as he documents his upcoming trip from London to Mongolia in a used car. The stories he gets will be featured on his new podcast called far from home (farfromhomepodcast.org), which just recently went online. In this special live-recorded edition of The Backgrounder, Scott Gurian talks about his new podcast and explains why he wanted to take this trip in the first place.