The Backgrounder

Episode 82: Loretta Weinberg

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.

Episode 81: Buzz Aldrin

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.

Episode 80: Benjie Wimberly

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 its full potential.

Episode 79: Heather Howard

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 Democrat on the Princeton Municipal Council. In this episode, Howard talks about whether we are all healthier after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, explains some of the details behind Aetna’s recent withdrawal from Obamacare in all but four states, and she tells us what we may not be appreciating about her former bosses, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Jon Corzine.

Episode 78: Gordon MacInnes

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 problems on the desks of the next governor and state legislature. He also gives his point of view on Governor Christie’s proposal for school funding reform, and he gives a preview of NJPP’s upcoming report on the nine worst decisions ever made in the state. As NJPP approaches its 20th anniversary, MacInnes gives his run down on some of the organization’s greatest accomplishments and tells why NJPP is NOT a liberal think tank.