Prieto’s moves in the Statehouse guided by lessons as boy in Cuba TRENTON — When a constituent approached Cuba-born Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto this week to explain why she agreed with the White House’s decision to reverse the government’s policy toward the communist nation, he held up his hands and told her why he thought she was wrong. “I’ve always said, whether it’s in politics or in anything, when you’re looking from the outside in, and you’re looking through a window, it’s not as clear as once you get in the room,” he said. As Prieto, a Democrat, caps his first year as one of the state’s top elected officials and prepares for an election year likely to include a difficult decision on how to finance transportation costs, he is grounding himself in the lessons he learned as a boy in Cuba. He and his mother fled there four decades ago when he was 10. Prieto recalls a Cuban regime under which citizens couldn’t get ahead and food and toys were rationed. The government seized property, and elites dined on ham while ordinary citizens did without. He said those experiences helped mold him into a pragmatic, if also transactional, legislator. “I’ve always said, when you negotiate you have to get something of [...] newsinnj/prietos-moves-in-the-statehouse-guided-by-lessons-as-boy-in-cuba/
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 17:15:44 +0000
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