Richard Fortunato

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Richard Fortunato
Image of Richard Fortunato

Republican Party

Education

Bachelor's

Rutgers College, 1982

Law

Fordham University School of Law, 1985

Personal
Profession
Chairman of the Board of the Catastrophe Risk Exchange
Contact

Personal website

Richard Fortunato was a 2017 Republican candidate for District 22 of the New Jersey General Assembly.

Biography

Fortunato earned his B.A in history from Rutgers College in 1982 and his J.D. from Fordham University School of Law in 1985. His professional experience includes working as a lawyer at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and as the chairman of the Board of the Catastrophe Risk Exchange, Inc.[1]

Campaign themes

2017

Fortunato's campaign website highlighted the following issues:

“

Putting You First - Not Special Interests

  • Every decision the Legislature makes seems to be governed by what's best for special interests, not the people. Special interests contribute enormous amounts of money to Assembly campaigns, including to Mr. Green and Mr. Kennedy (especially Mr. Green!) and so what the special interests want is what the Legislature does.
  • What's best for the people doesn't seem to matter.
  • That won't be true for me. I've never held public office before and my campaign bank account surely doesn't contain hundreds of thousands of dollars contributed by special interests.

We Need More and Better Jobs

  • I'll work towards making New Jersey a better place for businesses to start up, stay and expand and not leave the State. The government ought to make sure businesses don't take advantage of their workers, but there is a balance that needs to be there. Government can't be "anti-business" and at the same time expect businesses to stay here and give people good jobs.

Lower Property Taxes

  • We need to work to lower real estate taxes. I will work to lower real estate taxes. The underlying issue is the way the State funds local school districts. School funding in New Jersey needs to be reformed so that funds are allocated with more of an emphasis on the number of students in a school district, and not so much on the basis of esoteric formulas put in place by the New Jersey Courts. If funds were allocated more on the basis of the number of students in a district, there would not be a need for local real estate taxes to be as high as they are now.

Fix the Pension Crisis

  • We need to move towards a system where new employees are enrolled in 'defined defined contribution plans' (401(k)'s for example), existing employees going forward should be phased into defined benefit plans and vested benefits under the current retirement plans should be valued and replaced with either cash (based on present values) which the employee can put into a self-directed IRA, or with a funded tax-deferred annuity from a qualified insurance company (where the annuity is designed to pay approximately the same pension benefit as was originally agreed).
  • This approach will require the State to put up cash to fund the payout of its existing plans. The State, unfortunately, would have to borrow that money. The upside to this approach is that the total dollar amount is finalized, with no other additional obligations on the part of the State. So while that number will be large, it will be final. And when it comes to financial matters and the debt markets and rating agencies, certainty counts for a lot.

More School Choices

  • I will work to make more choices available to parents, grandparents and others who responsible for the education of children.
  • One option that should be available is 'education savings accounts'. With this, the local school district would make available to any parent or guardian an amount of money (for example 90% of what the district would spend on the child) for each school age child, and the parent or guardian would be able to spend that money on education related expenses, such as books, and also for tuition at any school which satisfies basic state qualification requirements. Arizona has this program. We should too.
  • Another option would be to look at a voucher system. This would be similar to the GI Bill set up after World War II. With this, each parent or guardian would receive for each school age child a voucher worth a certain amount of money that could be spent to pay the expenses of sending the child to any qualified school. The school could be the local public school, another public school nearby, or a private school, as long as the school met certain minimum qualifications.[2]
 ”
—Richard Fortunato[3]

Elections

2017

See also: New Jersey General Assembly elections, 2017

General election

Elections for the New Jersey General Assembly took place in 2017. All 80 seats were up for election. State assembly members are elected to two-year terms. The general election took place on November 7, 2017. A primary election took place on June 6, 2017. The filing deadline for the primary election was April 3, 2017.[4] Legislative districts in the New Jersey General Assembly are multi-member districts, with two representatives in each district. In Democratic and Republican primary elections, the top two candidates move forward to the general election, and the top two candidates in the general election are declared the winners.[5] The following candidates ran in the New Jersey General Assembly District 22 general election.[6][7]

New Jersey General Assembly, District 22 General Election, 2017
Party Candidate Vote % Votes
     Democratic Green check mark transparent.png James J. Kennedy Incumbent 32.62% 27,763
     Democratic Green check mark transparent.png Gerald Green Incumbent 32.05% 27,284
     Republican Richard Fortunato 17.19% 14,631
     Republican John Quattrocchi 16.07% 13,682
     Remember Those Forgotten Onel Martinez 1.11% 942
     Pushing Us Forward Sumantha Prasad 0.96% 818
Total Votes 85,120
Source: New Jersey Department of State

Democratic primary election

Incumbent James J. Kennedy and incumbent Gerald Green defeated Paul Alirangues in the New Jersey General Assembly District 22 Democratic primary election.[8][9]

New Jersey General Assembly, District 22 Democratic Primary, 2017
Candidate Vote % Votes
Green check mark transparent.png James J. Kennedy Incumbent 46.54% 10,922
Green check mark transparent.png Gerald Green Incumbent 44.72% 10,495
Paul Alirangues 8.74% 2,053
Total Votes 23,470
Source: New Jersey Department of State

Republican primary election

Richard Fortunato and John Quattrocchi were unopposed in the New Jersey General Assembly District 22 Republican primary election.[10][9]

New Jersey General Assembly, District 22 Republican Primary, 2017
Candidate Vote % Votes
Green check mark transparent.png Richard Fortunato 50.77% 2,333
Green check mark transparent.png John Quattrocchi 49.23% 2,262
Total Votes 4,595
Source: New Jersey Department of State

See also

External links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Richard Fortunato 2017 campaign website, "Background," accessed August 21, 2017
  2. ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
  3. ↑ Richard Fortunato 2017 campaign website, "Issues," accessed August 21, 2017
  4. ↑ New Jersey Secretary of State, "2017 Primary Election Timeline," accessed March 21, 2017
  5. ↑ New Jersey Division of Elections, "Official List, Candidates for General Assembly for Primary Election, June 6, 2017," accessed April 13, 2017
  6. ↑ New Jersey Department of State, "Candidates for General Assembly for General Election 11/07/2017 Election," accessed September 14, 2017
  7. ↑ New Jersey Department of State, "2017 official general election results," accessed November 30, 2017
  8. ↑ New Jersey Division of Elections, "Official Candidate List," April 6, 2017
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 New Jersey Division of Elections, “2017 official primary election results for general assembly,” accessed July 13, 2017
  10. ↑ New Jersey Division of Elections, "Official Candidate List," April 6, 2017


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