Senator Gill is a sponsor of the measure recently signed into law to criminalize the deprivation of civil rights by public officials, making racial profiling a state crime. She has also sponsored the New Jersey Civil Rights Act, which would give individuals a remedy whenever one person deprives another person of any rights, privileges or immunities or interferes with another's civil rights. Additionally, she sponsored a resolution to formally revoke an 1868 effort by the New Jersey Legislature to withdraw New Jersey's support for the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and its due process and equal protection provisions.

Senator Gill sponsored legislation that provides a $3,000 income tax deduction for certain families providing home care for an elderly relative, legislation that abolishes the death penalty in New Jersey, and has also sponsored legislation allowing PAAD recipients freedom of choice in selecting a pharmacy and prohibits the imposition of a mail order system. The Senator also sponsored legislation that establishes a central registry of domestic violence orders for use in evaluating firearm permit applications, sponsored legislation to upgrade crimes of the third degree. In addition, Senator Gill is the first African American and the first woman in the history of New Jersey named to serve on the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee.

All that said, I like Nia Gill. As a resident of a multi-cultural town in New Jersey similar to Ms. Gill's town of Montclair, I particularly like the fact that as an Assemblywoman, she voted against New Jersey's charter school legislation and did NOT support the attempted (and unsuccessful) creation of a charter school in her town.

In my town, our own resident-Assemblywoman not only voted for the charter school legislation (knowing that a second shoe would drop), but also supported her cronies in their successful efforts to establish a charter school. It is certainly more than arguable that had she opposed it instead of throwing her weight behind it, the charter school -- founded primarily out of local politics and personal vindictiveness -- would not have come to pass. (And by the way: after five or six years, the charter school has not measureably or consistently produced better results.)

Thus, my Assemblywoman at the time, in contrast to Ms. Gill, undermined an already fragile multi-cultural school district for her own selfish reasons. And what were those reasons? From what I can gather, she didn't have enough cronies on the school board to satisfy her narcissistic need to feel in control and important. In fact, her last crony on the school board had just been defeated -- after which, he quickly became a primary organizer of the new charter school. Another organizer quickly landed a patronage job is the legislator's local office.

I don't know a lot about Nia Gill, but what I do know I like. And if what I like is an indication of who she really is, it shows that Governor-elect Corzine can sometimes -- only sometimes -- actually recognize principled character.

P.S. Anyone care to guess who my Assemblywoman was?

lucky new jersey!  i'm envious.  i'd give up the empty skirt or the box turtle dude for nia gill in a heartbeat.

Don't forget--if he doesn't pick Rush Holt now, there's still a chance for him in 2008.  There's zero chance that Lautenberg will run for another term, so another open seat will present itself in New Jersey shortly.  Also, since Gill is a state senator, she probably doesn't have the fund-raising capacity that Holt has, so she could use the leg-up that would come from the appointment and 10 months of incumbency.