George Norcross. Similar to George Soros. They both avoided high profile candidates running expensive campaigns for President, Governor, or U.S. Senator. They both invested in little known candidates for little known offices. Norcross specialized in candidates for small cities, towns, counties, and school districts.

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I personally paid for George Norcross politics when wanted to pave the small driveway of my law office in Somers Point, NJ. Norcross supported Democratic Party candidates who took control of the city government. In return, the new city officials replaced the local city engineer with one in Camden County who was connected to Norcross. I had to pay hundreds of dollars extra for the new city engineer to drive down from Camden County to inspect my property and my plans and meet with local officials.

This "pay to play" politics has been normal in New Jersey for years.

Political insiders also get rich from the "redevelopment racket". When politicians running a city, town, or government authority declare properties to be "in need of redevelopment", they give themselves four important powers:

Get rid of all zoning laws affecting the property, and great new zoning laws for just that property.

Give special tax breaks to the properties.

Take properties by "eminent domain" if owners refuse to sell.

Select the contractors and professionals to run the project.

It is very easy for political insiders to make lots of money with that power. Last week, George Norcross was charged with illegally using that redevelopment power in Camden back in 2011 and 2012 to make lots of money.

 In 2001, Norcross helped his boyhood friend Steve Sweeney raise $1.9 million to become a NJ State Senator by defeating Raymond Zane, a longtime incumbent.  Norcross also helped raise another $457,000 for a joint political committee that also supported John Burzichelli for the Assembly.  That was the most money ever spent on a political campaign for a legislative seat until that time.

In 2009, George Norcross helped form a statewide coalition that made Steve Sweeney President of the New Jersey Senate, the second most powerful position in state government.

However, in 2016, the powerful NJEA teacher's union turned on Sweeney and Norcross. They were angry at both for not supporting a state constitutional amendment to bail out insolvent NJ government employee pensions.

In New Jersey, there is zero connection between how much public employees pay into pension funds and how much they get when they retire. Their pensions are based on how much they earn during the last few years before they retire.

When I was on City Council in Atlantic City in 1980's, it was normal for lifeguards to work for small salaries for 10 weeks during the summer. However, they would get big promotions and then work year-round just before they retired to "juice up" their pensions. Public school teacher salaries were structured to give big pay hikes just before retirements. Police officers were often given big promotions and pay hikes just before retirement. The classic case is Robert Codey, the brother of former Senate President and acting Governor Richard Codey. He was a lawyer who earned roughly $45,000 per year for most of his career. However, he was appointed to 3 high paid acting county prosecutor positions just before he retired and juiced up his pension to more than $90,000 per year! Both Republicans and Democrats knew the pension funds were insolvent since the 1990's.

During the 1990's, Republican Governor Christie Todd Whitman tried to fix New Jersey pensions funds by borrowing pension money and putting it in the stock market. The stock market crashed soon afterwards.

From 2010 to 2016, Republican Governor Chris Christie used politically connected hedge fu...