Verniero is the main character in a drama that will be unfolding over the next two weeks as the Senate Judiciary Committee holds hearings examining how the state police and Attorney General's Office dealt with racial profiling. What is revealed at the hearings could harm DiFrancesco's political ambitions. Democrats are hoping that a critical cross-examin ation of Verniero will not only shore up support among core black voters, but also taint DiFrancesco, who lobbied colleagues to win approval of Verniero's nomination to the high court. In the Democratic Party's campaign playbook this fall, Verniero will be painted as the poster child of racial profiling, regardless of what the hearings reveal. The Democrats also intend to depict DiFrancesco as the Whitman administration's chief lieutenant in the Legislature who marshal ed the minimum votes to confirm the controversial nominee, despite deep resistance among his fellow Republicans.
Democrats also have other targets in their sights.
Two years later, Whitman defeated incumbent Democrat Jim Florio. Democrats this fall plan to argue that since the GOP takeover, state debt soared, contracts were awarded to Republican supporters, and racial profiling flourished unabated. They denied and covered up racial profiling. The focal point of the Democrats' attack will be DiFrancesco, who they believe is far more vulnerable to criticism than the 20 other Republican senators who voted to confirm Verniero. DiFrancesco, serving as acting governor in March 1999 while Whitman was away, formally filed the Verniero nomination with the Senate.