The consensus candidate: with democrats split, the new assembly speaker in New Jersey was an unlikely candidate. And the new governor picked him.

Even in his wildest imagination, Albio Sires never thought he would become speaker of the New Jersey Assembly.

"I did not get a chance to even dream about this," he says. "No, never. I mean this happened too quickly."

A freshman backbencher in the chamber, his seat was closer to the door of the 80-member Assembly than to the speaker's podium.

He made only a few speeches and introduced only 19 bills in his first two years in office. His status as a member of the minority Democrats assured him that his legislation would die a quick death in a chamber where the speaker holds all the cards. There's a reason the Assembly speaker is called the third most powerful elected official in New Jersey, behind the governor and the Senate president.

The speaker decides which bills will live or die, determining which bills are referred to a committee for consideration and which are posted in the full Assembly for a vote.

"I quickly found that unless you are in the majority, it really doesn't matter what you say," Sires says. "You could have the best ideas in the world, and they are not going to go anywhere."

That all changed on Jan. 9 when Sires, an imposing figure at six feet four inches, stood for the first time behind the speaker's podium in the ornate Assembly chamber and got ready to pound the gavel.

But first he had to find the gavel. A nervous Sires wondered if former Republican Speaker Jack Collins had played a joke on him. But then he looked in the drawer and realized that Collins had left it. "I guess it's state property," he joked.

UNLIKELY CHOICE

Sires seemed an unlikely choice for speaker when Democrats took control of the Assembly last November for the first time in a decade.

Previous speakers had years of service in the Assembly. Albio Sires was just finishing his first two-year term.

Sires was virtually unknown outside the North Jersey city of West New York, where he has been mayor for the last five years.

He had also been a Republican for 13 of the last 15 years, switching his registration only two years ago.

When James McGreevey ran for governor the first time in 1997 against incumbent Republican Christine Todd Whitman, Sires supported Whitman.

But Sires's rise to power occurred because he fell into Governor-elect McGreevey's plan.

The Cinderella story for the 50-year-old Sires, the first Cuban-American legislative leader in the nation, began last Nov. 6 when Democrat McGreevey trounced his Republican opponent Bret Schundler in the gubernatorial race. The Democrats also regained control of the New Jersey Assembly for the first time in 10 years, gaining nine seats in the Assembly for a 44-36 majority.

McGreevey addressed cheering supporters at the East Brunswick Hilton. Among those smiling was Minority Leader Joe Doria.

Doria had served as speaker in 1990 and 1991. But Democrats lost control of the Assembly in 1992 because of voter outrage over then-Governor Florio's $2.8 billion tax increase.

Doria has held on as minority leader since 1992, waiting for his chance to be speaker again.

In the meantime, a messy decade-old feud between Democratic legislators, like Doria, who hails from the northern part of the state, and legislators from the south led by state party chairman Senator Joe Roberts, had prevented a unified Democratic legislative caucus.

FACTIONS AND FEUDS

A motorist can travel from the top of Northern Jersey to the bottom in South Jersey in less than three hours. But the Northern part identifies itself with New York City, while the southern part with its Philadelphia axis might as well be a separate state.

Roberts challenged Doria unsuccessfully for minority leader in 1997. Then three years ago, insisting that the wishes of Democratic south Jersey lawmakers weren't being given any weight by the larger northern faction, the 10 south Jersey legislators walked out of the Democratic caucus and formed their own sub-minority caucus.

With McGreevey's victory, Roberts wanted to be the new speaker. So did Doria.

But McGreevey had other ideas. He walked off the ballroom stage and asked Sires to come with him to a hotel room.

"He said to me, 'I have a really serious problem in the Legislature,"' Sires recalls. "'I have a Legislature that for 10 years has been basically divided. You have the north and the south. They can't seem to come to an understanding that we have to work together, and we have to put the differences behind us and move forward."'

Sires says McGreevey asked him to be the consensus candidate.

"He thought I was someone who could pull people together, since I did not have a history of being part of the feud," Sires says.

It would not be so easy. The fight for speaker was only beginning. Doria thought he had the necessary 23 votes to be speaker. So did Roberts.

Two days later, the Democratic Assembly members were scheduled to vote. But a surprise visitor to the caucus was Governor-elect McGreevey. The future governor offered Sires' name as the next speaker and asked Democrats to delay their vote. By a two-vote margin, 23 to 21, Democrats acceded to McGreevey's wishes.

The governor-elect and his aides then stepped up the pressure through phone calls and meetings with the Democratic Assembly members. Legislators said they were told in no uncertain terms that they were to support Sires. If they didn't, McGreevey's aides stated that they could face challenges from within the Democratic party in the next election in two years.

Legislators said they were asked to sign loyalty pledges to Sires, and McGreevey's camp insisted that the normally secret caucus vote be done in the open among members.

"I think that would add to more divisiveness in our caucus," Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, a Democratic from Central New Jersey, told a reporter. "This isn't the Taliban running our caucus. I think the integrity of the caucus procedure and the ballot vote should remain. And that's the whole purpose of the secret vote."

Jo Glading, a McGreevey spokeswoman, said written pledges were just part of the effort to secure commitments.

McGreevey picked off Roberts in his battle to make Sires speaker by promising him the position of Assembly majority leader, the second top spot. Robert's supporters quickly fell in line.

Two Doria supporters, Loretta Weinberg from suburban Bergen County and Donald Tucker from Newark, were also promised leadership positions, cutting Doria's support further.

But Doria's supporters weren't giving up. They held a rally in Jersey City, the adjoining community to Bayonne, Doria's Assembly district. Doria is also Bayonne's mayor. The only Hudson County mayor who wasn't there was Sires.

Key among the attendees was U.S. Representative Robert Menendez, a major McGreevey backer, who helped him win the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

At the Doria rally, Menendez, who is Cuban like Sires, reiterated his support for Doria, saying his 22 years in the Legislature gave him experience that Sires could not match with only two years in the lower House. "You have to work for it. You have to earn it," said Menendez.

Doria said he was surprised that McGreevey wasn't supporting him. Menendez also said McGreevey had told him that Doria would be the next speaker if the Democrats won control of the house.

But McGreevey insisted that he had only promised that the new speaker would be from Hudson County, and he was making good on that promise.

"The need right now is to have a leadership team that works, is to move forward," he said at a press conference. "And unfortunately, in these past years, there have been fractious disputes. My responsibility is to move past this and to understand the importance of having a working team."

Not surprisingly, the wishes of the governor-to-be ultimately squashed Doria.

As Doria was insisting at the Jersey City rally that he would not give up in his battle to be speaker, Newark Mayor Sharpe James, a Doria supporter, had decided he could not go against the governor's choice.

"Love Doria. Respect Doria," he told a reporter. "But it makes no sense to oppose a governor-elect."

Other legislators began to crack under pressure.

Ten days after the battle started, the Doria forces raised the white flag and surrendered.

Sires was going to be the new speaker.

The soft-spoken Sires, who came to the United States from Cuba at the age of 10 and speaks with an accent, appeared before reporters to formally introduce himself at a State House press conference.

"Only in this country can you come, not speak the language, not know where the bathroom is and be elected speaker," said Sires showing his sense of humor.

Earlier that day, Sires heard that members of the Doria camp were grumbling that he was so unfamiliar with the legislature that he couldn't even find the bathroom.

A month later on Dec. 10, the Democratic caucus formally picked Sires for the top spot. He was elected unanimously, both Doria and Roberts having withdrawn from the contest.

Sires's fellow legislators all praised their new leader.

"There is unity among the Democrats," said Assemblywoman Mary Previte, a previous Roberts supporter.

Even Congressman Mendendez seemed happy, saying he was pleased that a Cuban American had ascended to one of the most powerful state political positions.

Sires appeared before reporters acknowledging that while he owed a debt of gratitude to McGreevey, he would not be anyone's pushover.

"I don't know of any speaker who has not worked with the governor. And I don't know of any speaker who has not differed with the governor from time to time," he said. "So I don't see myself as any different. We will work together on a number of issues and there are issues where I have to protect my members."

Trenton, New Jersey's state capital, is 64 miles from West New York, where Sires is mayor. But it seems like 6,000 miles. In West New York, many merchants display signs in Spanish. The population, 85 percent Hispanic, is a mix of people from Cuba, Puerto Rico and Central and South America. Crammed into an area barely ninth-tenths of a square mile are 45,000 people, according to the Census Bureau, and 55,000, according to Sires. No matter, it's a lot of people. The commercial shopping area is crowded and noisy, the houses are on top of each other. Apartment buildings line Boulevard East, West New York's most exclusive street. The view from the cliffs above the Palisades across the Hudson River is midtown Manhattan.

It is in this town that Sires settled with his family in 1962 shortly before his 11th birthday, his family fleeing the Communist regime in Cuba.

He has never gone back.

But he remembers being in a youth commission as a 10-year-old, and learning how to march and how to use a machine gun. He also remembers when all the books were removed from Cuban schools and replaced by Russian versions. "I remember [the Communists] collecting all the English magazines and books and having a bonfire."

Life was hard for his parents. Sires said the family lived in a cold-water flat. His father was paid $1.39 an hour in a factory job, forcing him to work 16-hour days to support the family.

HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER

In America, Sires attended local schools, becoming a basketball star at the same school where he later returned to teach Spanish and coach basketball.

Politics got into his blood in 1979 when he helped a friend run for local office. Four years later in 1983, he began fighting the local machine. He ran on a slate of five candidates that was opposing the town's Democratic machine led by Mayor Anthony DeFino. He lost.

Sires became the town's gadfly, appearing at every city council and school board meeting to question DeFino about his policies.

"Taxes were out of control, the police were not effective, the school system was in decline, services in the community were poor," Sires recalls.

Shut out of the Democratic Party, he became a Republican.

Sires left teaching and started his own title insurance company. He served briefly as an official for Hispanic affairs at the state Department of Community Affairs. And he kept running for mayor, coming closer each time but losing to DeFino on two more occasions.

Sires finally won in 1995, as an independent, when DeFino declined to run. Then he rejoined the Democratic Party.

Sires says he was always a Democrat, but was forced to switch because of DeFino. He says he laughs to himself when he hears his friends say he's totally indebted to Governor McGreevey and that he will have to follow the governor's orders.

"I have fought the machine in this county, I never did what was politically right in their eyes," he says.

Sires said he made hard decisions in West New York, laying off 20 percent of the city's employees after becoming mayor to restore the community's sagging finances.

"Putting a bill on the floor is not as hard as telling a person with two kids--'I'm sorry but I have to lay you off because there is no money in the budget,"' he says.

Sires' tenure in City Hall has been marred by a corruption scandal at the police department. Thirty people including seven officers and the long-time police chief were convicted or pled guilty to bribery, gambling and prostitution charges in 1998.

But Sires says it's a good thing, insisting he had no involvement with the corruption.

"The best thing that happened was the FBI coming in and ending this corruption that had been here for 40-something years," he says. "The chief himself said that they have been crooked for 41 years."

Sires says he knows being speaker will be a full-time job.

He says hard decisions will have to be made in Trenton with the state's budget gap estimated to be at more than $2 billion. He says a tax increase is not politically feasible. "The solution has to have many components," he says. "There has to be cuts, stopping projects, refinancing things here and there," he says.

He says dealing with the budget is likely to preoccupy the Assembly for the next few months. But then he has other pet projects he'd like to see worked on--racial profiling and pre-school education.

For now, unity is the word the Democratic members of the Assembly use publicly. Doria and Sires exchanged a bear hug in a January ceremony that saw all the members of the Assembly sworn in for a new term.

Roberts, the new Assembly majority leader, says Sires will be a great leader.

"It's a historical precedent-setting day," remarked Congressman Menendez. "We look forward to two great years from the speaker."

Menendez also said he was proud to have another Cuban American in a leadership position.

Sires cried as he recalled how his parents, who are both deceased, came to the United States in search of freedom and opportunity. "My parents embraced a dream that has endured the test of time for generations," he says.

Sires says he will embody that spirit to ensure that he is an effective speaker. He said he is especially honored, knowing that he is the first Cuban American Assembly speaker in the nation. "But you know, I have my feet well planted. I recognize that I live in New Jersey and have a responsibility to the people of New Jersey," he said.

David Rebovich, a veteran New Jersey political observer and director of the Rider Institute of Politics, says McGreevey's move in naming Sires now seems brilliant.

"He killed several birds at once," he says. Rebovich said McGreevey found a way to patch up the feud between north and south Jersey legislators, and at the same, manage to appease Doria backer Menendez, by naming a Cuban-American from Hudson County for the leadership spot.

Still, privately, despite the outward expression of unity, some Democratic legislators say they question whether Sires will be able to make all the necessary decisions to be an effective speaker.

Sires has heard the talk. He says his experience as mayor taught him how to make decisions. "If you are a mayor of a town, you are making decisions on a day-to-day basis," he says. "And besides," he says referring to former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Tip O'Neil, "One great speaker once said, 'All politics is local.'"

Randy Diamond covers the New Jersey Legislature for The Record, a northern New Jersey newspaper.

RELATED ARTICLE: DIVIDED SENATE SHARES POWER

Senator Richard Codey was Senate president in January and February. Senator John Bennett is president of the Senate this month and next, in May and June, Senator Codey will return to the job. Then, in July, August and September, Bennett takes over.

The two will then alternate two months at a time until the end of the year.

The following year, they will reverse the months each is in charge.

It sounds confusing because it is. These days you need a scorecard to determine who's running the New Jersey Senate.

Welcome to power-sharing.

The unprecedented arrangement occurred because neither the Democrats nor Republicans garnered a 21-vote majority in last November's elections, Instead, when the final ballots were counted, there was a 20-20 split.

So Democrat Richard Codey and Republican John Bennett agreed to a power-sharing arrangement designed to fit the unique circumstances.

They rotate who's in charge. As for the committees, a Democrat and a Republican co-chair each Senate committee.

"Republicans and Democrats will work together in the best interests of the state," said an optimistic Bennett in January.

Codey also was hopeful, but not entirely sure if Republicans would try to get in the way of newly elected Democratic Governor James McGreevey's legislative initiatives.

With Democrats capturing the governorship and the Assembly in November, it is only the Senate Republicans who can stop McGreevey's agenda.

"I'm hopeful they will be working together and not be only a watchdog that barks all the time," Codey said.

But if the month of January and early February is any indication, the power sharing may become an obstacle to the full functioning of the state Senate. Bennett wanted veto power to block bills from being posted for a vote, Codey wouldn't agree to it. So instead, nothing happened, because Codey refused to schedule committee meetings until the dispute was resolved.

Because they are both Senate presidents, both Codey and Bennett got a chance to be acting governor for three-and-a-half days each in January.

Under the New Jersey Constitution, the Senate president serves as acting governor when there is no elected governor in office. New Jersey Republican Governor Christine Todd Whitman left her spot in early 2001, and Senate President Donald DiFrancesco became acting governor.

But the term of DiFrancesco, who did not run for re-election, expired Jan. 8, the day the new state Senate and Assembly were sworn in.

With Governor McGreevey not sworn in until Jan. 15, it was up to Codey and Bennett to fill the spot. In the interest of power-sharing, they split the week, each getting a half as acting governor.

Bennett used his time to give the state-of-the-state address, create a commission to study the nursing shortage, attend a building demolition ceremony in Camden and talk to students in four public schools. Codey had breakfast with residents of a state mental institution, held a press conference to give details about New jersey's $2 billion-plus debt and signed several bills.

Both senators slept with their families in Drumthwacket, the governor's mansion, where they hosted parties for friends and families, paid for, they insist, with their own money. Each man also printed his own stationery and paid for his own ceremonial pens.

MORE LEADERS

Other leadership positions are also shared. Republican President Pro Tem Joseph Palaia is paired with Democratic President Pro Tern Shirley Turner. Republicans have co-majority leaders, Senators anthony Bucco and Robert Singer. The Democratic Majority Leader is Senator Bernard Kenny Jr.