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. þþHer 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.þþBut 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. þþSuch 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. þþBut 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. þþMr. Corzine and Ms. Katz, who had both recently divorced, dated for more than two years while he was a United States senator, living together in his apartment in Hoboken, renovating her home in Hunterdon County and talking of marriage. þþThey have repeatedly declined to disclose the total amount or specific contours of the financial agreement their lawyers negotiated upon their breakup in 2004, but lawyers familiar with the settlement and union officials who conferred with Ms. Katz during the negotiations — all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of political retribution — disclosed for the first time that it exceeded $6 million. þþThe package was said to include a trust to pay for Ms. Katz’s two children, now 12 and 15, to attend college and a 2005 Volvo sport utility vehicle that cost about $30,000, neither of which had previously been reported. Mr. Corzine also gave — and then forgave — Ms. Katz a $470,000 loan, the value of a mortgage, so she could buy her ex-husband out of their Hunterdon County home. She also received a lump sum of cash that she used to buy a $1.1 million condominium in November, among other things. þþInterviews with some three dozen people who know the pair — from union and administration officials to lobbyists and friends — leave no clear explanation as to why he paid the settlement or why their interactions have become strained. þþSome see her as a spurned lover still nursing hopes of reconciliation; others say she is a savvy advocate eager to leverage any avenue for political results. He is alternately viewed as afraid of what she might say about him, or simply as a rich and generous man who considered the relationship significant enough to warrant helping her maintain the lifestyle they had shared. þþWhatever the reason, many personal and professional associates said that since 2004, Ms. Katz, who makes about $100,000 a year as president of Local 1034 of the Communications Workers of America, has repeatedly sought to stay in Mr. Corzine’s circle — and he has repeatedly rebuffed her. þþShortly after the breakup, many of their friends were stunned when she rented an apartment at the Hudson Tea building in Hoboken, two floors directly below Mr. Corzine’s. She has frequently shown up at his public appearances, according to union officials and administration aides, and it is not unusual for her to call his office more than once a day to offer detailed advice. (Other state politicians, including former governors, say she is well-known for that kind of persistence.)þþThough the settlement did not include a confidentiality agreement, both Mr. Corzine, 60, and Ms. Katz, 48, refused to be interviewed on the record for this article. In their few terse public statements about the relationship since its demise, each has described the other as a friend. þþ“While the nature of the relationship has changed in recent years, Carla remains a good friend and respected labor voice,” Mr. Corzine said through a spokesman. “Communication with her is mutually respectful. To indicate otherwise is a mischaracterization of the relationship.”þþWhen questioned by the ethics panel last month, the governor acknowledged the delicacy of the situation. “It is not easy to disengage from a relationship that is both personal and political,” the panel’s report quoted him as saying in an interview on April 11.þþThe next day, Mr. Corzine, who has been in a relationship with another woman for the past two years, was critically injured in a car accident. As he lay in intensive care at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, according to hospital officials, the security guards received an unusual and explicit order from the governor’s aides: under no circumstances was Ms. Katz to be allowed to visit. þþA Determined AdvocateþþIn a state whose union leadership is dominated by men who toiled in heavy industry or the building trades, Ms. Katz has stood out. þþShe started as an organizer for the national communications union a year after her 1981 graduation from Rutgers University, where she had excelled in the labor studies program. She has been with the group ever since, save for a short break to work for the filmmaker John Sayles. In 1999, she rose to her current position, president of Local 1034, the largest and most politically dexterous of the state’s seven government employee unions, with a total of 16,000 members, from clerks and caseworkers to prosecutors and environmental regulators.þþIn Trenton, Ms. Katz is known as an effective advocate who tempers aggressive demands with a saleswoman’s blend of charm and self-deprecating humor, helping state workers win generous pay increases, and pension and health care benefits over the past decade. þþ“She’s widely respected because she’s focused and has a great grasp of the issues,” said State Senator Stephen M. Sweeney, a Gloucester County Democrat and an officer in an ironworkers’ union. “And you don’t want to get in her way when she’s set her mind on a goal.”þþShe met Mr. Corzine at the New Jersey Industrial Union Council’s annual conference in the spring of 1999, shortly after he decided to run for the United States Senate. Ms. Katz’s local had already endorsed Representative Frank Pallone Jr., a Democrat, for the seat and was trying to portray Mr. Corzine, a former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs, as a latter-day robber baron. þþMr. Pallone later dropped out of the race, and soon there were signs that Mr. Corzine had won Ms. Katz over: one of his campaign’s first television advertisements featured a clip of her smiling at him during a union rally.þþA Common OutlookþþThey began appearing publicly as a couple in early 2002 — shortly after both of their marriages had ended — and were soon seen socializing at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, in the Hamptons, the Caribbean and at various society events on both sides of the Hudson. Union colleagues said Ms. Katz began wearing expensive clothing from big-name designers. She regaled co-workers with stories of trips on Mr. Corzine’s private jet and social encounters with former Vice President Al Gore, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Gov. George E. Pataki.þþThey lived together from April 2002 through their breakup. Friends said they displayed photographs at his Hoboken apartment of Mr. Corzine frolicking with her two children. They hired an architect to transform her historic house in Hunterdon County into a manor home of more than 10,000 square feet (post-breakup, it was scaled back to 3,200 square feet). þþThey shared a common political outlook and sense of humor. “As two bright people who have active minds, I think there was a real expectation on the part of the both of them that it would lead to a permanent relationship,” Robert G. Torricelli, the former United States senator, said.þþMs. Katz enrolled in Seton Hall Law School in 2004, and one union official said she mentioned that one of the reasons she did so was because she hoped to marry Mr. Corzine and was concerned that if he was elected governor, her representation of state employees would be a conflict of interest. þþBut when Mr. Corzine took over as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for the 2004 election cycle, things began to deteriorate. As he traveled the country to raise money and recruit candidates, friends and a union leader recalled, Ms. Katz worried the romance was unraveling. þþ“She said that his children could not accept her and that the families could not mesh,” said Kathy Black, a former Local 1034 staff member.þþThat August, when Gov. James E. McGreevey announced his resignation, Mr. Corzine instantly became the favorite to succeed him. The couple was in the midst of breaking up, one former confidante and colleague said, and Ms. Katz threatened to stage a news conference designed to embarrass Mr. Corzine, but soon calmed down.þþAfter several months of detailed discussion by their lawyers, the parties agreed on the financial package in November 2004. It remains unclear what, if anything, Ms. Katz provided in exchange.þþThe ethics report said that Mr. Corzine had intended to pay Ms. Katz over a period of years, but that after news reports about the $470,000 loan rattled his campaign in August 2005, he paid in full that month.þþFacing CriticismþþSince Mr. Corzine was sworn in as governor in January 2006, Ms. Katz has made herself a regular presence. At his inaugural ball, her black silk and lace Versace gown attracted the attention of guests and gossip columns. When he made his first address to the Legislature, Ms. Katz was waiting at the door and kissed him on the cheek as he entered.þþDuring last summer’s government shutdown, when lawmakers met for a weekend budget session, The Star-Ledger of Newark said Ms. Katz complained to Mr. Corzine’s aides that it had been “inappropriate” of the governor to bring his new romantic interest, Sharon Elghanayan, into the office during the impasse. Ms. Elghanayan declined to be interviewed for this article.þþYet nothing matched the intensity of the attention Ms. Katz attracted for reaching out directly to her former companion regarding the labor talks, in which she led the opposition to the proposed contract that was eventually embraced by state employees. She faced criticism from politicians in both parties, and labor leaders in New Jersey and at her own union’s national headquarters.þþWhen questioned by the ethics panel, Ms. Katz said that in her e-mail correspondence with the governor, she mentioned the bargaining only in vague terms, because “we knew we were under heightened scrutiny.” The panel was critical of her actions, saying she had created at least the appearance of a conflict, but Ms. Katz did not seem chastened.þþ“My responsibility as union president is to vigorously and faithfully represent my members,” she said in a written statement responding to the report, “and I will continue to do so forcefully.” þþAfter Mr. Corzine was released from the hospital, Ms. Katz phoned him (and he took the call). She has told colleagues that she intends to continue lobbying at the state Capitol, on property taxes and other issues beyond direct union business. þþAnd last week, she attended the Legislative Correspondents Club dinner, an annual comedy show put on by State House reporters and politicos, where her relationship with Mr. Corzine was fodder for an assortment of biting jokes. þþ
Source: NY Times
