Caren Turner

Turner has written articles for The Huffington Post and The New Agenda. She was a member of Together4Us. Turner previously served as a vice president of FleishmanHillard; practiced international trade law and litigation at Cameron, Hornbostel and Butterman; and worked as a research analyst at International Business Government Counselors. She is the former president of Shelter our Sisters, a New Jersey shelter for victims of domestic violence. Additionally, Turner is a women’s rights advocate and has worked with the organization Vital Voices to secure rights for women internationally.

In 2018, Turner was heavily criticized for her behavior at a traffic stop by Tenafly, New Jersey, police. On March 31, of that year, Tenafly police stopped a vehicle in which Turner's daughter had been traveling with friends. After police discovered the out of state vehicle's registration was two years out of date and the driver did not have an insurance card, they moved to impound it. Turner arrived soon after to pick up her daughter and the other occupants of the impounded car and repeatedly demanded to know the reason for the traffic stop, telling the officers that she was a "friend of the mayor", that they could "not put a sentence together", requesting they address her by the title "commissioner", and stating that they had ruined the holiday of "Ph.D. students from MIT and Yale." She said she would be "talking to ... the mayor", and then launched into a tirade which climaxed in Turner ordering one of the police officers to "shut the f*** up."

The Record subsequently named the traffic stop one of the twelve "biggest moments of 2018."

In February 2017, at the recommendation of New Jersey Senate Majority Leader, Loretta Weinberg, she was nominated by Governor Chris Christie to serve a six-year unpaid term on the Board of Commissioners of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. On March 13, 2017, her nomination was approved by a Senate Judiciary Committee and the New Jersey State Senate. In March 2017, Turner voiced her opposition to President Donald Trump's 2018 budget due to the impact his proposed cuts would have on the Gateway Program.

Following Turner's resignation, Port Authority chair Kevin O'Toole said Turner had "clearly and unambiguously" acted in violation of its code of ethics and issued an official apology to the Tenafly police officers involved in the incident. Turner was given an official censure by the Port Authority, which described her behavior as "outrageous and profoundly disturbing." Her case was referred to New Jersey's Ethics Commission. In the earlier statement of apology released by Turner, she had asserted that her actions did not constitute a violation of the code of ethics. Nevertheless, in October – six months following the incident – Turner was fined $1,500 by the Ethics Commission.

Turner has worked as a lobbyist for companies that manufacture parts for Lockheed Martin fighter jets. In 2012, she called for "more women in [defense industry] top jobs." She has appeared on news programs such as Fox Business Network as a government lobbyist expert.

Caren Zeldie Turner (born July 4, 1957) is a former United States Democratic lobbyist and former commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey who received media attention in 2018 after a video was released showing her berating police officers at a traffic stop, posturing in an aggressive and condescending manner, and announcing she was a "friend of the mayor." The former commissioner is also a political consultant and the founder and CEO of Turner Government & Public Affairs, a government affairs firm. She served on the Hillary Clinton national finance team and was a co-chairman of the Financial Committee for Ready for Hillary, a super political action committee created to draft Clinton for the 2016 United States Presidential Election. Turner has been featured on Fox Business as a correspondent on Washington lobbying. As a political consultant she has worked for companies that manufacture parts for Lockheed Martin fighter jets. She was an attorney with Potomac Law Group and a former adjunct professor at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management.

Turner was born on July 4, 1957, to Bernard and Joyce Turner. Her father was an attorney who served on the Board of Education in Cresskill, New Jersey, and she has one sibling, a brother, Stuart Turner. Turner is from New Jersey and received her juris doctor from Georgetown Law, where she served as the editor of the school's Law and Policy in International Business law journal. She received a bachelor's degree from Brandeis University where she majored in both political science and Spanish. She also received an executive MBA from Rutgers University. Turner has sat on the Georgetown Law Alumni Board.