NYT: Romance Over, Union Chief Has Corzine’s Number

Romance Over, Union Chief Has Corzine’s Number
By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI and SERGE F. KOVALESKI
Published: May 23, 2007


(Rick Bard/Associated Press)
Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey and Carla Katz, a union president, in 2002.

When contract negotiations between Gov. Jon S. Corzine’s administration and New Jersey’s seven major state employee unions reached a standstill last fall, one union president, Carla Katz, sent a message to the governor’s private e-mail address with a personal appeal to revive the talks.

Her union colleagues said in recent interviews that they had emphatically warned Ms. Katz, whose romance with Mr. Corzine ended with an unusual multimillion-dollar settlement in 2004, not to contact the governor away from the bargaining table for fear their history posed a conflict of interest.

But she pressed on with the independent lobbying, according to a review by a state ethics panel, making about a dozen attempts to discuss a proposed contract with her former companion via telephone and e-mail.

Such efforts infuriated labor officials in New Jersey as well as at her union’s national headquarters, and led a mayor in Bergen County to file a formal complaint with the ethics panel. On May 8, the panel concluded that Mr. Corzine was not swayed by her entreaties and did not violate the governor’s code of conduct.

But the episode stands as a prime example of a muddled, enduring relationship between two extremely powerful people that remains among the most fascinating parlor topics in New Jersey political circles. And it continues to raise complex questions and draw harsh criticism over the intersection of public responsibilities and private commitments....

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/23/nyregion/23carla.html?hp=&pagewanted=all