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Mayor Cory Anthony Booker

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Cory Anthony Booker (born April 27, 1969) is an American Democratic Party politician who has been serving as the 36th Mayor of NewarkNew Jersey since 2006. He is the third African-American mayor of Newark, and was formerly a Newark City Councilman, and practicing attorney. He is a graduate of Stanford University, the University of Oxford (where he was a Rhodes Scholar), and Yale Law School.

Early life and education

Booker was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in the predominantly white, affluent town of Harrington Park, New Jersey, 20 miles north of Newark.  His parents, Cary Alfred and Carolyn Rose (Jordan) Booker, were among the first black executives atIBM.  In 2009, he told US News that he was raised in a religious household, and that he and his family attended a small, African Methodist Episcopal Church in New Jersey.   Booker graduated from Northern Valley Regional High School at Old Tappan. He was named to the USA Today All-USA high school football team in 1986.

He went on to Stanford University, receiving a B.A. in political science in 1991 and anM.A. in sociology the following year. While at Stanford, Booker played varsity football.   He also made the All–Pacific Ten Academic team and was elected senior class president.   In addition, he ran The Bridge, a student-run crisis hotline and organized help for youth in East Palo Alto, from Stanford students.  After Stanford, he attended The Queen’s CollegeOxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, earning an honours degree in U.S. history in 1994.  Booker received a J.D. in 1997 from Yale Law School, where he operated free legal clinics for low-income residents of New Haven. At Yale, he was a founding member of the Chai Society (now the Eliezer Society).  He was also a Big Brother and was active in the Black Law Students Association. Booker lived in Newark during his final year at Yale. After graduation, Booker served as Staff Attorney for the Urban Justice Center in New York and Program Coordinator of the Newark Youth Project.

Between mayoral campaigns (2003–2005)

After concluding his service as Central Ward Councilman, Booker in 2002 founded Newark Now, a grassroots non-profit organization that connects Newarkers to useful resources and services in order to help transform their communities.   In addition, Booker also became a partner at the West Orange, law firm Booker, Rabinowitz, Trenk, Tully, Lubetkin, DiPasquale and Webster, and a senior fellow at Rutgers University‘s Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy.

2006 mayoral run

Booker announced on February 11, 2006, that he would again run for mayor. Incumbent Mayor James then declined to seek a sixth term and Deputy Mayor (and State Senator) Ronald Rice ran against Booker.   Booker’s campaign outspent Rice’s 25 to 1. Rice ran a campaign attacking Booker for raising over $6 million for the race; Booker attacked Rice as a “political crony” of James.   Booker won the nonpartisan election of May 9, 2006 with 72 percent of the vote, with his slate of City Council candidates, known as the “Booker Team,” sweeping the Council elections, and giving Booker firm leadership of the city’s government.

Before taking office as mayor, Booker sued the James administration seeking to terminate cut-rate land deals favoring two redevelopment agencies which were contributors to James’ campaigns and which listed James as a member of their advisory boards. Booker argued that the state’s “pay-to-play” laws had been violated and that the land deals would cost the city more than $15 million in lost revenue. Specifically, Booker referenced a parcel on Broad and South streets that would generate only $87,000 under the proposed land deals yet was valued at $3.7 million under then-current market rates.   On June 20, 2006, Superior Court Judge Patricia Costello ruled in favor of Booker.  In late June 2006, before Booker took office, New Jersey investigators foiled a plot, led by Bloods gang leaders inside four New Jersey state prisons, to assassinate Booker. The motive for the plot was unclear, but was described variously as a response to the acrimonious campaign and to Booker’s campaign promises to take a harder line on crime.

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