Nothing NJ Transit's president said Friday could lift the scowl from Steve Sweeney, the Senate president, hosting another hearing into the troubled rail and bus service.

Kevin Corbett came armed with a predictable and lengthy recitation of his progress in reviving an agency that's been trundling toward Third World status. But Sweeney was having none of it.

This was, after all, a top lieutenant in Gov. Phil Murphy's camp, the enemy.

"Mr. Corbett, it was not an honest answer,'' Sweeney said, cutting off Corbett as he tried to explain why two people from a public relations agency were recruited to provide rosy and phony testimony about NJ Transit's service at a previous hearing in Hoboken.

To help illustrate the alleged crime of PR skulduggery, Sweeney's staff installed enlarged photos of the two culprits placed on easels off to the side. The faces were circled, looking like they had been netted by FBI surveillance cameras. Great visuals for the TV camera crews.

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"Don’t dig any deeper, please,'' Sweeney said, as Corbett tried to interject.

Billed as part of an effort at oversight of the troubled transit agency, the hearing was, in reality, just another predictable proxy clash in the intraparty war between Sweeney and Murphy over the past 21 months.

The mutual distrust and dislike between the two powerful Democrats has created a toxic cloud of inertia over the Statehouse. In some ways, it's a deeply ironic outcome for a party that spent unprecedented millions over the past decade to seize and maintain one-party rule. The Democrats run everything in Trenton but can't seem to manage themselves.

This should be a time of ambitious progressive reform. The party has the power to revive not only NJ Transit, but the whole state. But don't expect ambitious and grandiose reforms like the Pinelands Act or bail reform or a much-needed revision of the property tax system.

Instead, we have the Era of Squandered Power. Instead of landmark, we have gridlock.

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Governing by humiliation

Governing these days consists of both sides spending their energy trying to outmaneuver or humiliate each other, in hopes of scoring political points. Call it the Shame Game of governing.

Friday's hearing was a case study. Sweeney and his allies, eager to tap public frustration with Murphy's management of NJ Transit, fulminated as they grilled Corbett over his purported managerial misdemeanors. Not surprisingly, the lawmakers at the hearing did not mention their own failed oversight of the degradation of the agency under former Gov. Chris Christie's watch.

But the real agenda here for legislative Democrats is to humiliate Murphy, prod him into action and take credit for it if he does.

Sweeney also had a strategic motive. Immediately after the hearing, he announced his proposal to dedicate $500 million annually to NJ Transit.

It was an attempt by Sweeney to get a jump on Murphy before he rolls out a competing plan in Tuesday's budget address to a joint session of the Legislature. Sweeney will enter the Assembly chamber for Tuesday's speech with the upper hand — as if anybody outside Trenton is keeping score.

Murphy plays a similar shame game. The ethics reform plan he rolled out last week was an example.

It calls for tightening the revolving door between the Legislature and lobbying firms. It scraps the Legislature's self-serving exemption from the state's open records law. And it restricts top legislative aides from earning outside income.

But there is a theme running through these proposals. Murphy is, in effect, saying the lawmakers should abide by the same rules as his office. Murphy is implying that the Legislature led by Sweeney is an ethical cesspool, while his progressive-minded administration operates on a higher ground.

And if his plans die a slow death in the Legislature — which is almost certain to happen — Murphy can cite it as proof of the Legislature's corrupt allegiance to party bosses, which is music to the ears of his grassroots base.

'Millionaires tax' as Murphy's weapon

Murphy suffered a black eye in his first two budgets, unable to increase the marginal tax rate on income above $1 million from 8.97 percent to 10.75 percent, which would raise about $500 million in new revenue. Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex, refused to rubber-stamp newcomer Murphy's campaign promise. They did agree to boost rates over $5 million in income in 2018.

Murphy is expected to push once again for a millionaires tax in Tuesday's budget address.

It may seem like a futile, Sisyphean crusade for Murphy to try again this year, but in some ways his stubborn insistence helps burnish his progressive bona fides. It also serves as a useful cudgel to clobber his fellow Democratic Party foes.

The fight has allowed Murphy to cast himself as the champion of the middle-class voters who toil outside the Trenton bubble and who support the idea, according to polls. By contrast, Sweeney and Coughlin are cast as coddlers of millionaires and the calcified special interests who control Trenton.

There are signs that Murphy's shaming strategy may be paying off. Over the weekend, Sweeney signaled that he was softening his stance, and that he's now willing to consider raising the tax in exchange for an extra $1 billion for the state's struggling public employee pension funds.

Such a commitment would be a heavy lift for Murphy, and cause a dramatic rewriting of his budget plans. But for the first time since coming to Trenton, both sides begin the budget season with doors wide open to negotiations.

“I’ve absolutely said ‘no’ for the last two years,” Sweeney told NJ.com. “And now, I’m like, look: If you really want a millionaires tax, then let’s pay the pension up, and then we can move forward as a state and make the right kind of investments that we need to make.”

Murphy, through a spokesman, struck a conciliatory chord, too. Dan Bryan, a senior adviser to Murphy, said Sunday that the governor "thanks" Sweeney for his "willingness to work together."

Maybe shaming has prodded Sweeney to the table. Or Sweeney may be trying to cover his flank against pitchfork-carrying progressives and public employee unions that are now ascendant in the party's base and have spent the past year challenging his power. In any case, it's an apparent sign of a thaw.

Top-heavy with public relations at NJ Transit?

The shame-game strategy can also, on occasion, produce some useful insights. Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, D-Bergen, argued that the agency was wasting its money on public relations advisers, instead of maintenance.

"We should be helping to be your PR firm and you should be spending money on cleaning buses and cleaning trains and a customer advocate who is a true customer advocate,'' she scolded Corbett.

Lawmakers also vented about the role of Stewart Mader, a $127,500-a-year customer advocate and chief customer experience officer who reportedly took to Twitter on Thursday to discredit a NorthJersey.com story about two NJ Transit employees with connections to the agency's top executives. They were hired without their jobs being publicly posted.

Mader reportedly sent the tweets at the direction of Jeannie Kwon, the agency's chief administrative officer and one of the two executives highlighted in the NorthJersey.com article Thursday. Corbett did not confirm whether Mader or Kwon was involved in the social media post.

The agency removed the tweet, and Bryan said it was "outrageous, completely inappropriate and wholly unfair."

"In my humble opinion, Mr. Mader has disqualified himself to continue being the 'customer advocate' for NJ Transit, because no one could have confidence in his ability to be a spokesperson for commuters when he is tweet-bashing reporters who might be reporting about accurate facts at NJ Transit," Weinberg said.

It was a moment of legitimate outrage, and it might force a reorganization in NJ Transit's communications operation. In the Era of Squandered Power, that would be called progress.

Charlie Stile is a veteran New Jersey political columnist. For unlimited access to his unique insights into New Jersey’s political power structure and his powerful watchdog work, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: stile@northjersey.com Twitter: @politicalstile