Senate President Steve Sweeney has made his own version of the viral video The Harlem Shake to attack Republican Senator Tom Kean Junior for taking contributions from AshBritt following Friday's hearing on how the company was given its contract to clean up debris from Superstorm Sandy.

Screen shot from The Trenton Shake
Screen shot from The Trenton Shake (YouTube)
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In an email, Sweeney writes that he has challenged the Senate Minority Leader to not accept campaign donations from what he calls "the questionable Hurricane Sandy debris removal contractors or their politically-connected subcontractors."

 

Kean accepted donations from the Conti Group, a New Jersey company that works with AshBritt. Conti has donated thousands to both Republicans and Democrats over the past 30 years according to the Star Ledger

Kean has not responded to Sweeney's challenge, prompting the south Jersey Democrat to  produced a video titled "The Trenton Shake" to prompt a reply. The video shows Kean dancing a political version of the Harlem Shake on the Delaware River in front of both the Trenton Makes bridge and piles of Sandy debris.

Up to 4,000 videos of "Harlem Shake" variations are uploaded on the Internet daily. The song "Harlem Shake," recorded by Brooklyn disc jockey and producer Baauer, is currently one of the most popular songs in the country.

AshBritt Hearing On Friday

A special joint committee on Friday questioned AshBritt CEO Randy Perkins at a hearing investigating how the company was given a no-bid contract to handle Superstorm Sandy debris cleanup.

Republicans feel Christie hired the best company for the job and they claim Democrats are just engaging in an election year political witch hunt.

“In the midst of the worst natural disaster of our lifetimes, perhaps in this state’s history, the Governor of New Jersey made a decision to hire a firm to help us clean up and return life to normal as quickly as possible,” said Kean at the hearing. “Criticism for criticism’s sake has, in many ways, paralyzed this legislature over the last several years. Can we, at least when it comes to a natural disaster, please put that partisanship aside?”

Senator Barbara Buono, the presumed Democrat candidate for governor, attacked the Christie administration during the hearing. “It appears to me at this point that the Administration went out of its way to give politically connected out of state firm a lucrative no-bid contract at double the price of its competitors and I find it at this point of the committee indefensible,” says Buono. “You need to know that this committee isn’t about politics.”



Kevin McArdle and the Associated Press contributed to this report

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