Corzine tries to restore luster to a tarnished public office

Steve Landfield’s column appears twice a month in NJ Jewish News.

What is it about New Jersey’s attorneys general? While the federal level, presided over ably by U.S. attorney Chris Christie, has developed a reputation for fighting corruption, the state attorney general’s office had developed a reputation of its own: for being light on corruption, or at least for overlooking the appearance of questionable behavior. So, it’s little wonder that the first political scandal of the Corzine administration would come out of that office.

First, there was former Attorney General Peter Harvey, who could have been politely described as light on the investigation of official corruption, which in the McGreevey administration, with its constant and numerous scandals, was about as difficult to find as the broad side of a barn. Nevertheless, Harvey almost always seemed to miss, and he embroiled himself in a conflict of interest scandal by accepting free tickets to a boxing match in Atlantic City, despite being the chief law enforcement officer of the state, and the guy having regulatory authority over such events. No big deal to him. A $1,500 fine and he finished his ineffective term in office.

More recently, we had Attorney General Zulima Farber, with her dubious explanation of her actions on May 26 in an equally improbable situation. On that Friday before the Memorial Day weekend, Farber’s live-in-companion, attorney Hamlet Goreb, was driving his minivan in Fairview, which is in Bergen County. He was stopped at a checkpoint by Fairview police who determined that Gore was driving with a suspended license and operating an unregistered vehicle. Minutes later, Farber, who just happened to be between appointments in Newark, showed up in her official state car, driven by a state trooper, with emergency lights flashing. She was met at the scene not only by police, but also by the mayor of Fairview, who “just happened to be at the scene” to visit his son, said a Fairview police officer working at the checkpoint. The next thing you know, the two summonses were voided.

When it was suggested that Farber exercised her influence to get the tickets voided, her response was that “I don’t think my presence had any influence on any decisions made there by the local police or the mayor.”

Wisely, Gov. Corzine appointed a retired judge to investigate the whole matter, and it was no surprise that he found three ethical violations in Farber’s behavior that day. She resigned and was out of office by Aug. 31. In her stead, Corzine appointed his chief counsel, Stuart Rabner, to head the Department of Law and Public Safety.

So now we have the first casualty of the new administration. In fact Farber’s predicament has led one newspaper to coin a new term in Trenton: “Farbered,” meaning to resign or be fired from public office.

Instead, perhaps it would be better to paraphrase Shakespeare — Hamlet, of course: Farber’s tenure as attorney general was simply “not to be.” There was no question.

Now it falls to Rabner to restore the department’s reputation. With glowing endorsements from both Democrats and Republicans and the support of the state’s main newspapers (“Something unusual happened last week,” opined the Press of Atlantic City. “A person with absolutely impeccable credentials was nominated to be New Jersey’s attorney general.”), perhaps Corzine can add a new word to the political dictionary: “Rabnered,” or to be replaced by someone who understands that respect for the law begins at the top.