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This is not normally a statement which would raise eyebrows - Corzine being a liberal Democrat; but Corzine's love seems a bit stronger than most: "TRENTON, Aug. 3 - Senator Jon S. Corzine provided a $470,000 mortgage to the president of a union that represents thousands of New Jersey state employees in late 2002, then forgave the debt two years later. The union president, Carla Katz, was Mr. Corzine's girlfriend at the time. The senator said on Wednesday that an investment company he owns gave her the mortgage, then canceled it in December 2004, several months after they had stopped...

New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D) paid the brother-in-law of his ex-girlfriend $15,000 to quit a Turnpike Authority job last January, the Newark Star Ledger reports. "At the time, reporters had been pressing Corzine's office for answers about [Rocco] Riccio's work record and how he got hired." These revelations add to the scrutiny over numerous gifts Corzine gave Carla Katz, president of the largest state workers union, since their break-up in 2004 -- which Corzine did not disclose when he ran for governor in 2005. Corzine contends the gifts are a personal matter, and says the total was less than...

We've all heard of, 'one-sided,' negotiations, but Governor Jon Corzine's case to keep e-mails between he and ex-girlfriend and state worker union leader Carla Katz private may actually hinge on that premise. Corzine says because he never responded to e-mails sent by Katz seeking to discuss recent state worker contract talks, he never actively negotiated with her away from the bargaining table. Corzine has consistently said e-mails between he and Katz should be kept private because they are personal exchanges with his ex-girlfriend. He has adamantly and consistently denied to messages had anything to do with the recently completed public...

Did Governor Jon Corzine and ex-girlfriend, union leader Carla Katz discuss te recently completed public employee contract away from the bargaining table and did that impact the final deal? Republican State Committee chairman Tom Wilson is suing to find out. The GOP wants Corzine to turn over e-mails he exchanged with Katz during the contract talks. Katz argues that the court should consider her rights as a private citizen and the rights of her union, Communications Workers of America Local 1034, as a private organization in deciding whether the e-mails will be made public. A hearing is set for today...

"Back door, backroom conversations, private correspondence using private e-mails designed to circumvent the (Open) Public Records Act makes us curious," says attorney Mark Sheridan. He's the lawyer planning to file a lawsuit on behalf of the Republican State Committee today asking a judge force Governor Jon Corzine and Carla Katz, president of Communications Workers of America Local 1034 to turn over private e-mails. Sheridan believes there is precedent for the suit. He cites the fact that, twice the Government Records Council has forced mayors to turn over personal e-mails dealing with official business, "Why should the Governor be subject to...

Disclosure reports: Corzine gave cash gifts to top aides The Associated Press Published: Saturday, May 6, 2006 Updated: Saturday, May 6, 2006 TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - New Jersey's multimillionaire governor dipped into his personal fortune to give nearly $100,000 cash gifts to top aides late last year, just weeks before his Jan. 17 swearing in, according to recently released financial disclosure reports. Officials in Gov. Jon S. Corzine's administration acknowledged that each gift was kept under $11,000 so that neither the staffers or Corzine would have to pay taxes. "A gift is just that, and a number of Jon Corzine's...

In his first political firestorm since taking office in January, Gov. Jon S. Corzine said Wednesday that he provided $5,000 in bail money to a lobbyist accused of stalking a state assemblyman. "I reacted as a human being responding to someone in need," the multimillionaire Democrat said. "However, in light of my position as governor, I realize this was a mistake." Karen Golding, a government relations manager for insurance giant Prudential Financial, is accused of breaking into the government-issued car of Assemblyman Joseph Cryan, a Democrat, and of writing threatening letters and making threatening calls to Cryan and others. Authorities...

(AXcess News) New York - The people of the Garden State elected Senator Jon Corzine, a liberal Democrat, as their new governor and they have decided being a Blue State takes a front seat to ridding New Jersey of rampant corruption. Suprisingly, during the campaign, the editorial editors for all the major New Jeresy newspapers had endorsed Corzine's conservative opponent, Doug Forrester. The editorials stressed that while they didn't agree with Forrester's conservative views, he was preferable to Jon Corzine and his lack of honest and integrity. Jersey voters didn't agree. While the American people are being bombarded with news...

August 19, 2005 -- PRINCETON TOWNSHIP, N.J. — Sen. Jon Corzine, New Jersey's Democratic gubernatorial candidate, committed a federal felony by failing to disclose a half-million-dollar loan he'd made to the powerful union boss who was his girlfriend, a public-interest lawyer charged yesterday. "There is no 'girlfriend loophole,' " said Bruce Afran, adding that he planned to officially complain to the Senate. "One of the highest-ranking union officers in the state is given a half-million-dollar gift by a sitting U.S. senator. That is precisely the type of transaction the Senate wants to know about." He said he and his partner...

Jon Corzine is the business genius with a personal fortune in the hundreds of millions. Now he's the front-runner in the race for governor and his skills with the checkbook are being questioned. The savvy bond trader has admitted he made some business loans - totaling as much as a million dollars -that never panned out. One of the beneficiaries filed for bankruptcy and owes nearly $100,000 in back taxes, earning her a spot as one of New Jersey's top debtors. Corzine gave his former girlfriend a $470,000 gift so she could repay the debt on her home, which sold...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Tom Wilson (609) 989-7300 Both Jon Corzine and Jim McGreevey were endorsed by the Communications Workers of America at the behest of union Local 1034 President Carla Katz. The Kushner Connection: Jim McGreevey’s chief fundraiser and one of New Jersey’s most famous felons, Charlie Kushner also partnered up with Jon Corzine in an ill-fated attempt to buy the New Jersey Nets at ridiculous cost to taxpayers. Bob Torricelli was kind enough to broker with his good friend McGreevey the Corzine-Kushner appeal for state taxpayer subsidies. Jim McGreevey appointed Susan Bass Levin to head the Department of...

So much for the suggestion that running multimillionaire candidates who can self-finance their campaigns will rid politics of the "influence of money" factor. Sen. Jon Corzine... whose approach to politics has always been "you have to give if you want to receive" suddenly finds himself embroiled in a potential scandal involving both money and sex. Judging by his reaction thus far, Corzine believes his best bet is to stay close-mouthed behind an avowal of his right to privacy... lends an added air of someone trying to hide something. And since Corzine is trying to run as the Mr. Clean..., the...

New Jersey’s Own “ Ado Annie“ ? If you’ve ever watched “Oklahoma” , you’ll probably remember the irrepressible “Ado Annie ” – “a gal who cain’t say no”. It appears the Garden State may have its own “Ado Annie” – in the person of Carla Katz ,president of CWA Local 1034 : the union that represents roughly 8,000 state employees. Local 1034 has just said “yes” to Jon Corzine’s bid to become the state’s next governor. The Executive Board – headed by Ms Katz – has endorsed Jon’s candidacy. What spices up this otherwise-routine announcement is the fact Ms Katz...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- When Jon Corzine ran for the U.S. Senate in 2000, he was heavily criticized for spending more than $60 million of his own money on the race. Now as the Democrat campaigns to become New Jersey's next governor, his money is again the focus, but this time, it's what he has personally given and not disclosed. Corzine has been criticized for lending a state union boss he was once romantically involved with $470,000 to buy a house. He later forgave the loan and received the union's gubernatorial endorsement. Corzine's lawyer, Marc Elias, has said the senator did...

WASHINGTON — Sen. Jon Corzine's lead in the New Jersey governor's race has slid to single digits after the revelation that he gave $470,000 to an ex-lover who heads the state's biggest public-employee union, a new poll shows. Corzine (D-N.J.) now holds an 8-point lead over Republican Doug Forrester — 45 to 37 percent — down from 12 points a month ago before news of his gifts to Local 1034 chief Carla Katz, the RasmussenReports.com Sunday poll found. "It's a warning sign for Corzine but it's certainly not panic. He's lost ground over the past month. If there's more bad...

JOINED AT HIP: Jon Corzine with one-time sweetheart Carla Katz at a New York City fund-raiser in 2002. Photo: AP The woman at the center of New Jersey Sen. Jon Corzine's latest political brouhaha is no shrinking violet — she's a well-educated, hard-driving, tough-talking rabble-rouser. But one thing Carla Katz, boss of New Jersey's most powerful union, won't sound off on is the controversy surrounding the $470,000 loan-turned-gift she got from wannabe-governor Corzine, who's also her former boyfriend. "She shouldn't have to explain herself to anyone," said a worker at West Trenton-based Local 1034 of the Communications Workers of...

TRENTON, Aug. 4 - Saying that New Jersey cannot endure another governor hobbled by personal entanglements, New Jersey Republican leaders called Thursday for Senator Jon S. Corzine to disclose any other financial dealings he may have had with a union leader to whom he gave $470,000. Their statements came after news reports that in 2002 Mr. Corzine provided a $470,000 mortgage to Carla Katz, president of Communications Workers of America Local 1034, which represents 9,000 state workers and will be among the labor groups lobbying the next governor for billions of dollars in wages and benefits. In an interview with...

TRENTON, Aug. 3 - Senator Jon S. Corzine provided a $470,000 mortgage to the president of a union that represents thousands of New Jersey state employees in late 2002, then forgave the debt two years later. The union president, Carla Katz, was Mr. Corzine's girlfriend at the time. The senator said on Wednesday that an investment company he owns gave her the mortgage, then canceled it in December 2004, several months after they had stopped dating. The loan was not illegal, and Mr. Corzine said he took care of the required gift tax on the money he ended up giving...

Elected officials have a right to keep their personal lives private. But there's something about New Jersey that seems to impel politicians to mix their love lives with the taxpayers' business. When former Gov. James McGreevey revealed he was gay, it was impossible to support him on that count without pointing out that a public official, no matter what his sexual orientation, does not have a right to appoint the object of his affection to a post as security adviser. Now we have Senator Jon Corzine, who is currently running for governor, and his affair with Carla Katz, the president...

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jon S. Corzine loaned the president of New Jersey's largest state workers union $470,000 when the two were romantically involved about three years ago, then forgave the debt late last year, according to two published reports. Corzine, New Jersey's senior U.S. senator, turned the 10-year mortgage into a gift to Carla Katz just a week after kicking off his campaign for governor and several months after the two stopped dating, The Star-Ledger of Newark and The New York Times reported in Thursday's newspapers. Katz is president of the Communications Workers of America, Local...