Brendan Byrne

The New Jersey Supreme Court meets to discuss cases during the 1970s. (Left to right): Associate Justices Sidney Schreiber, Morris Pashman, Worrall Mountain, Chief Justice Richard Hughes, Associates Justices Mark Sullivan, Robert Clifford, and Alan Handler.

Sidney Schreiber, who served as an Associate Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court from 1975 to 1984, died on Wednesday in West Palm Beach, Florida.  He was 94.

A former Yale Law Review editor and a Republican, Schreiber was named to the top court by Democratic Gov. Brendan Byrne following the retirement of Justice Nathan Jacobs.  He began his legal career as an associate at the law firm of Joseph Weintraub, who served as Chief Justice from 1957 to 1973.  Gov. William Cahill appointed him to serve as a Superior Court Judge in 1972.  He came from Elizabeth.

A Democratic governor, struggling with approvals from his own party and trailing his Republican opponent in the polls, was seeking re-election during a summer dominated by news of the death of a music icon.  That happened in 1977, the last time a Democratic governor was re-elected in New Jersey.  Brendan Byrne won the Democratic primary with 30% of the vote, and came from behind to beat the GOP candidate, Raymond Bateman.  Elvis Presley died in August, between the primary and the general.

Barack Obama's visit to New Jersey marks the fourth time a President has come to campaign for the re-election of an incumbent Governor. 

Bill Clinton stumped for Jim Florio in 1993, Ronald Reagan for Thomas Kean in 1985, and Jimmy Carter for Brendan Byrne in 1977.  Lyndon Johnson did not visit New Jersey when Richard Hughes ran for re-election in 1965, although the First Lady did join Hughes for a tour of a Head Start center in Newark.  And Richard Nixon did not come to New Jersey in support of William Cahill, who lost the Republican primary to a White House ally, U.S. Rep. Charles Sandman.

Pollsters got it wrong the last two times a Democratic Governor ran for re-election:  an August 1993 Eagleton-Rutgers poll had Gov. James Florio leading Republican Christine Todd Whitman by nine points, 49%-40%; and Republican Raymond Bateman led Gov. Brendan Byrne by seven points, 46%-39%, in an August 1977 Eagleton-Rutgers poll.

In 1993, Florio had a favorable/unfavorable rating of 49%-40%.  31% rated his job as excellent or good, 36% said he was a fair governor, and 23% rated him as poor.

In 1977, 28% of New Jerseyans viewed Byrne as an excellent or good governor, 39% considered him fair, and 29% said he was doing a poor job.

Whitman beat Florio 49%-48%, and Byrne was re-elected by a 56%-42% margin over Bateman.

Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine trails Republican Christopher Christie by 12 points, 53%-41%, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.  Christie is the first Republican to be over 50% in a summer poll since Thomas Kean ran for re-election 24 years ago.

Corzine has upside-down favorables/unfavorables of 34%-58%, and an upside-down job approval rating of 33%-60%. 

In his bid for re-election to the U.S. Senate, Democrat Robert Torricelli had upside-down favorable/unfavorable rating of 15%-36% and an upside-down job approval rating of 28%-49% in an August 2002 Quinnipiac poll. In an August 2008 Quinnipiac poll, President George W. Bush had an upside-down job approval rating of 26%-70%.

Members of Jim Florio's staff, campaign and administration will gather at Drumthwacket tomorrow to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his election as Governor of New Jersey.  Gov. Jon Corzine will not be in attendance, and no taxpayer funds are being used for the event.

Gov. Jon Corzine faces just token opposition in the Democratic primary, although some pundits are watching to see if a significant number of Democrats - perhaps more than twenty percent of them - vote against him anyway.  In what is more of a race for second place, three other Democrats are running for Governor: Carl Bergmanson, a former Mayor of Glen Ridge; Roger Bacon, a factory worker who runs a customized ceramic mug business; and Jeff Boss, who claims to have witnessed the U.S. government planning the 9/11 terrorist attack. 

There are reports that some public employee unions are, very quietly, suggesting that their members vote for Bergmanson.  Their hope is that the vote totals of today's primary could influence Corzine over the next 28 days. 

After the 1973 election left Assembly Republicans with just fourteen seats, the GOP actually came close to winning control of the lower house in 1975, Brendan Byrne's mid-term election year.  That would likely have meant the return of Thomas Kean as Assembly Speaker; in turn, that could have altered the political landscape for the 1977 gubernatorial election.

Republicans picked up seventeen seats in '75, ousting eleven incumbents and picking up six open seats.  That reduced the Assembly Democratic majority from 66-14 to 49-31.

Seven other Democratic incumbents won close races: Walter Kozloski (D-Freehold) by 428 votes,  Robert Burns (D-Hasbrouck Heights) by 638 votes, Steven Perksie (D-Margate) by 725 votes, Harold Martin (D-Cresskill) by 995 votes, Mary Keating Croce (D-Pennsauken) by 1,068 votes, Vincent Ozzie Pellecchia (D-Paterson) by 1,275 votes, and Paul Contillo (D-Paramus) by 1,821 votes. 

For New Jersey Democrats, there was never a better year than 1973.  Republicans ousted their incumbent Governor, moderate William Cahill, in the primary and replaced him with Charles Sandman, a conservative Congressman.  Democrats, helped by the Watergate scandal in Washington (two weeks before the general election, Richard Nixon fired the Watergate special prosecutor in what was called "The Saturday Night Massacre") and the criminal conviction of top GOP officeholders in New Jersey, won the governorship by 721,378 votes (68%-32%).  Brendan Byrne won every county but Cape May - Sandman's home county.  Sandman's defeat was the worst for a Republican in New Jersey history.

Democrats picked up thirteen State Senate seats and 26 Assembly seats, leaving the Legislature with ten Republicans in the Senate and fourteen in the Assembly.  Only four legislative districts out of forty elected Republicans to the Senate and both Assembly seats; 36 districts sent at least one Democrat to the Legislature, including Hunterdon, Ocean, Morris, Sussex and Warren counties.

Incumbent legislators who ran for Governor, left to right: Assemblyman Rick Merkt (R-Mendham), State Sen. Raymond Garramone (D-Haworth), and State Sen. Gerald Cardinale (R-Demarest)

If Assemblyman Richard Merkt (R-Mendham) continues to poll in the one percent range, he could set the record for the worst showing by a sitting state legislator in a gubernatorial primary.  The record is currently held by Raymond Garramone (D-Haworth), a one-term State Senator from Bergen County who gave up his seat to challenge Brendan Byrne in the 1977 Democratic primary.  With 6,602 votes statewide, Garramone finished sixth in a field of eleven candidates, with 1.1% of the vote. 

Garramone was the 46-year-old Mayor of Haworth when he rode Byrne's 1973 coattails to an upset win in the heavily Republican 39th district over Harry Randall, a former Assemblyman and the father of BPU Commissioner Elizabeth Randall. 

When Garramone gave up his Senate seat to run for Governor, Republicans were confident of a pickup in District 39.  But Democrats held the seat when Frank Herbert, a Bergen County Freeholder and former Waldwick Mayor, beat Republican Assemblyman John Markert. 

Markert's running mate, Demarest Mayor Gerald Cardinale, lost his bid for an Assembly seat that year.  Cardinale came back to win in 1979, and moved up to the Senate when he defeated Herbert in 1981.  (When Cardinale sought the GOP nomination for Governor in 1989, he won 8.3% of the vote.)

Daniel O'Hern served as Chief Counsel to Gov. Brendan Byrne before his appointment to the New Jersey Supreme Court.

Daniel O’Hern, who served as an Associate Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court from 1981 to 2000, passed away tonight.  He was 78.

O’Hern started out in politics with his election as a Red Bank Councilman in 1962, and was elected Mayor in 1969.  He served as Commissioner of Environmental Protection from 1978 to 1979 and as Counsel to Gov. Brendan Byrne from 1979 to 1981.  Byrne appointed him to the Supreme Court that year.