well after 50 years of legislative service longtime Senator and former Governor Dick Cody is trading his trips to Trenton for retirement he leaves as the longest serving lawmaker in New Jersey history retiring nearly five decades to the day he was first sworn in spending eight years in the assembly 42 in the Senate two stints as Senate President and 14 months as Governor following Jim mcgreevy's resignation it's quite a run and he joins me now Governor good to see you why on Earth would someone want to spend 50 years in Trenton because every day you're helping people dealing with people and I enjoy people and enjoy doing things for people and um thought I did a good job people related to me um so I'm blessed in many many ways you of course are known for your work with mental health maternal Health the ban on indoor smoking yes uh the negotiations for MetLife Stadium oh yeah the undercover Governor you went into a state Psychiatric Hospital into a shelter in Newark you've done your homework yeah I've been covering you for a couple of years um I'm unusual obviously how did you find your path in the legislature uh for what you wanted to work on I just thought you know I didn't want to be a ho hum legislator I wanted to be different and get things done and when you do it in a dramatic fashion it makes it easier uh to get it done so when you go into a psychiatric hospital which is a dump at that time after you come out it gets fixed up I had one one that I worked at for a week and I took the fake identity of a a murderer and another of an armed robber and applied for a job there I remember the beard yeah they hired me wait a minute look look at this you know check them out whatever and and as a result of that that facility was closed cuz they weren't doing anything to help those people with mental illness it was just it was a disgrace so I got a letter after U that came out um from parents of one of those uh patients who said for the first time in many many years he's talking lucidly and that's a treasure why though does it take something dramatic your words to make that change as someone who spent the time there I mean I think people get frustrated right by by red tape by the bureaucracy of it all well a lot of people are afraid to speak up you know especially when you're dealing with people who has a loved one who's mentally ill and they don't have much money or maybe or in general I mean within state government the the frustration is typically that it's slow moving that it takes a long time to make change as someone who's been on the inner walls of the mechanics of it why is that uh change can come quick you know you can speak up and you get to the right Source uh things can get done I remember there was um two women uh they were Twins and one wanted to donate her um kidney one of her kidneys to her sister and and insurance company health insurance company had him a running around for months and months and months and uh the one sister was getting obviously very very sick and they called me and within 3 weeks he had the operation I just got on the phone with that company and said hey get the damn operation done and get done now so for them that was a phone call of a lifetime you've also Governor been pretty vocal about party bosses how do you survive in a political climate like new jerseys when party bosses have quite a bit of say I mean everything down to the ballot well um I've survived I run against the organization many times and won people say oh you can't win hell you can't make your case we made our case on numerous occasions and you won but there's good party bosses and there's bad party bosses who are the bad party bosses well they don't live around this area where do they live I don't want to go south on anyone uh we get it um okay but then that I have to ask then you ran in the primary you uh ousted your colleague Nia Gill who was moved into the district after the maps were redrawn and then two months later you announce your retirement correct and then ultimately the ticket gets decided by party bosses is that not a little hypocritical I don't know if it was it listen the party boss there is Leroy Jones good friend of mine who ran off the line against the party with me back in 93 and I family a long time so like I said there's bad party bosses and there's good party bosses and you know they exist you got to fight them and some people people stand up and do the right thing and the people who are representing me in the legislature very happy with especially John Mckeon has been a longtime friend and a good legislator were you upset at all about how it played out um with the gills switching names on the ticket first it was Brendan it was his wife it was Brendan it was his wife um well that that was up to Ms Jones make that decision so I think in at the end of the day he made a right decision um let me move on there was a number of bills obviously that you have either sponsored or co-sponsored and I'm thinking about the indoor smoking ban because that was something that you were really passionate about um it has not yet made it for the casino worker is there something more you think could have been done to get that over the Finish Line I was governor I instituted a smoking band in the state of New Jersey and I'm extremely proud of it we saved the lives of many new jerseyans because of it smoking is only allowed in New Jersey in a casino and it's allowed because the party bosses in South Jersey do business with the casinos and they've been able to stop it in the legislature very sad but true hopefully that will change I don't know if it will though but it's a very very small group of people what will you miss and who will you miss most uh from your time in the legislature no just being around the people in the legislature and all the good people who worked there and who worked for me and under me did a fantastic job you know I love every minute of it uh somebody was talking to me or talking about the um day I made a speech to the legislature and a tele teleprompter broke down which it did so I had practiced it so many times that I basically had memorized it but every time I got a round of applause I'd step aside and I'd say to the to the clerk damn teleprompter is broken tell somebody you had a lot of good times there should we expect to see like we've seen from past uh Governors and Senators a Cody Institute a think tank of politics at some University think that high but you know people like Tom Kean um Brendan burn I mean you know I idolized those people in fact I was actually a chauffeur for the Kane family a couple times this was pre-legislative service yeah there's some great stories there senator Governor uh Dick Cody thank you for your public service and thank you for your time thank [Music] you