Brendan Byrne

Republican gubernatorial candidate Christopher Christie might have a sizeable lead over Gov. Jon Corzine in three recent independent polls (and Steve Lonegan leads Corzine in one of them) but that doesn't mean the Washington insider community believes he will win.  Pundits outside of New Jersey are accustomed to be teased about New Jersey, where early polling is often more favorable toward Republicans than Election Day.  On October 27, 2004, there was a poll showing George W. Bush and John Kerry in a dead heat in New Jersey, and there was one on September 28, 2005 showing Douglas Forrester within four points of Corzine. And on September 20, 2006, Thomas Kean, Jr. led Robert Menendez 48%-45%.

"Considering that Corzine hasn't even started his re-election campaign and will spend millions of dollars of his own money when he finally does, and that Republicans haven't won statewide in New Jersey in a dozen years, Republicans may want to keep that champagne on ice before they start putting this contest into the win column," Nathan Gonzales, political editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report, told CNN yesterday.

New Jersey might be the bluest state in the nation.  The last time a Republican statewide candidate won New Jersey was in 1997.  Since then, 49 other states have elected a Republican to a statewide office. But also consider this: the last time New Jersey re-elected a Democratic governor was in 32 years ago.  Since 1977, 45 other states have re-elected a Democratic Governor.  Only New Jersey, South Dakota and Texas have not re-elected a Democratic governor since Brendan Byrne won his second term. (South Dakota has not elected a Democratic governor since 1974 -- the longest continuous streak in the nation.)

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Two Democratic members of the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, who may play a critical role in deciding the fate of Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Lonegan, are Trenton veterans who have spent six decades in New Jersey politics.  Both Albert Burstein and Jerry Fitzgerald English have enjoyed successful political careers, although each fell quite short of achieving their full public service ambitions.

 The Texas-born English (D-Summit) moved to New Jersey after law school at Boston College and Harvard when her husband took a job as Bell Labs researcher.  She founded a local conservation group in 1969, and in 1971, at the age of 36, she became the second woman to serve in the New Jersey State Senate.  English won a November 1971 special election to fill the remaining two months of a vacant Union County Senate seat.  She was not a candidate for a full term, and served until January 1972.

In 1972, English decided to run for Congress after eight-term U.S. Rep. Florence Dwyer (R-Elizabeth) announced her retirement.  She beat Richard Samuel, who had played a role in the New Jersey presidential campaigns of Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern, in the Democratic primary.  In the general election, State Sen. Matthew Rinaldo (R-Union) beat English by a wide margin, 64%-36% in a district that went 2-1 for Richard Nixon.  English never ran for office again.

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One of the best bargains in New Jersey politics came in 1977, when the Byrne administration sold a mailing list of 60,000 state employees to Democratic State Chairman Richard Coffee for $114.  Coffee used the list to boost Brendan Byrne's re-election campaign, and for Town Finance, a private loan business that he owned.  After Republicans found out about it in 1978, a state ethics panel looked into the matter and found that State Treasurer Clifford Goldman sold the list after the Attorney General's office approved the transaction.  Coffee, who had served as a State Senator from Mercer County and was briefly a candidate for the 1973 Democratic gubernatorial nomination, had purchased the same list during the Richard Hughes and William Cahill governorships.  

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Robert Meyner appointed eight men to the New Jersey Supreme Court during his two terms as Governor, many of them relatively young.  As a result, Richard Hughes, who followed Meyner, made no Supreme Court appointments during his eight years in office.  By the time William Cahill was elected Governor in 1969, the court began to turnover as several Justices reached the mandatory retirement age of seventy.  During his four years as Governor, Cahill made six appointments to five seats on the top court.

In early 1971, Cahill replaced retiring Justice Vincent Haneman with Worrall Mountain, a 62-year-old Appellate Court Judge from Morris County.  Both were Republicans.

Two other Justices, John Francis and Thomas Schettino, both Democrats, retired in September 1972.  At the time, the front runners for the two Supreme Court seats were Attorney General George Kugler and Robert Clifford, the Commissioner of Institutions and Agencies (now Human Services).  But Kugler became involved in one of several scandals that rocked the Cahill administraton: he was accused of helping to cover up charges that Secretary of State Paul Sherwin delivered a highway contract in exchange for a $10,000 contribution to the Republican State Committee.  While Sherwin went to prison, Kugler was cleared of any wrong doing by the State Commission of Investigation - although his hopes of going to the Supreme Court ended rather quickly.

There was considerable speculation at in 1972 that one of the Democratic candidates for Associate Justice was a young, politically-connected Superior Court Judge named Brendan Byrne.  Byrne received some attention when an organized crime wiretap called him the "judge that couldn't be bought," but Byrne was well known in the statehouse as Meyner's former Executive Secretary (now Chief of Staff), and as a former President of the Board of Public Utilities and Essex County Prosecutor.

It wasn't until six months later that Cahill, facing a hotly contested Republican primary against U.S. Rep. Charles Sandman, announced his picks for the two open Supreme Court seats: Republican Pierre Garven, his 47-year-old Chief Counsel, and Democrat Mark Sullivan, 62, an Appellate Court Judge.    Both came from prominent Hudson County political families: Garven's father was Mayor of Bayonne from 1906 to 1910 and again from 1915 to 1919; Sullivan's father was a Judge who once ran for Mayor of Jersey City, and his father-in-law was a five-term Democratic Congressman from Jersey City.

Two weeks after Cahill named Garven and Sullivan, Chief Justice Joseph Weintraub announced that he would retire at the end of the year - a move that would later be moved up to September 1.  The 65-year-old Weintraub decided sixteen years was enough and that he wanted to travel.   Read More >

Death and retirements gave Democratic Governor Robert Meyner the opportunity to make eight New Jersey Supreme Court appointments during his eight years as Governor - the most for any Governor under the current State Constitution, including Alfred Driscoll, who made seven appointments in December 1947.

But during the eight years that Meyner's successor, Democrat Richard Hughes, was Governor, he made no Supreme Court appointments.  But Hughes would himself serve as Chief Justice for nearly six years after leaving office.

Not including sitting Judges being renominated, Republicans William Cahill and Christine Todd Whitman nominated five Justices; Brendan Byrne picked four; James E. McGreevey and Jon Corzine named three; and Thomas Kean selected just two new Justices during his eight years as Governor.  James Florio made no Supreme Court appointments during his four years as Governor.

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Former Bayonne City Commissioner John Januszewski passed away on Thursday at the age of 91.  Januszewski was elected City Commissioner in 1959 and ran for Mayor of Bayonne in 1962.  He made it to a runoff, but lost by 2,755 votes, 55%-45% to Francis Fitzpatrick. 

Fitzpatrick was famous was the leader of a reform movement in Hudson County that helped topple a pair of legendary political bosses and Jersey City Mayors, Frank Hague and John V. Kenny.  He served as a Hudson County Freeholder from 1945 to 1951, and Bayonne City Commissioner from 1959 to 1962.  In his runoff victory against Januszewski, he carried in all five of his City Commissioner running mates, including future Mayor Dennis Collins and future Assembly Speaker and Congressman Joseph LeFante.

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Of the seven Democrats and Republicans running for Governor, only two have never lost an election: Democrat Jon Corzine won a race for U.S. Senate in 2000 and was elected Governor in 2005; and Republican Brian Levine was elected to the Franklin Township Council in 1997 and 2001, and Mayor in 2003 and 2007.

On the Republican side, Christopher Christie was elected to the Morris County Board of Freeholders in 1994, and lost GOP primaries for State Assembly in 1995 and for Freeholder in 1997.  Steven Lonegan was elected Mayor of Bogota in 1995, 1999 and 2003, but lost races for State Senator (in 1997 to incumbent Byron Baer) Congress (in 1998 to incumbent Steve Rothman), Bergen County Executive (2002 convention) and Governor (2005 primary).  Rick Merkt lost a 1995 primary for State Assembly (he was Christie's running mate) before winning the first of six terms in 1997.  Jim Murray lost a 2006 primary for Morris County Freeholder and then won in 2007.

Corzine's Democratic primary opponent, Carl Bergmanson, was elected three times to the Glen Ridge Council before losing a 1999 bid for Mayor.  He was elected Mayor four years later.

Of New Jersey's ten elected Governors under the current State Constitution, six had lost previous elections: James E. McGreevey ran unsuccessfully for Governor in 1997; Christine Todd Whitman lost a 1990 bid for U.S. Senate; Jim Florio lost a race for Congress in 1972, a gubernatorial primary in 1977, and a race for Governor in 1981; Thomas Kean, Sr. lost Republican primaries for Congress (1974) and Governor (1977); Richard Hughes lost a race for Congress in 1938; and Robert Meyner was defeated in a re-election bid for State Senator two years before he was elected Governor in 1953. 

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There is a temptation by the media, including this site, to designate former U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie as the front runner for the Republican gubernatorial nomination.  A Quinnipiac poll released yesterday with a 27-point lead, 44%-17%, over former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan. 

A February 2001 Quinnipiac poll had Acting Gov. Donald DiFrancesco leading Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler 45%-16% among Republican primary voters.  A Quinnipiac poll taken in May showed former U.S. Rep. Bob Franks with a 46%-24% lead over Schundler.  Schundler won the primary by fourteen points, 57%-43%. 

In 2000, former Gov. Jim Florio had a 57%-22% lead over first-time candidate Jon Corzine in a February Quinnipiac poll.  Corzine won the primary 58%-42%.

Conservative Jeff Bell, a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, beat four-term U.S. Senator Clifford Case in the 1978 GOP Primary by a 51%-49% margin.  But just a month earlier, an Eagleton-Rutgers poll had Case leading Bell 35%-7%.

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Quinnipiac University pollster Clay Richards says that incumbent Jon Corzine has suddenly become the underdog in his bid for re-election to a second term, and that the "big question is whether Corzine will come back like Democratic Gov. Brendan Byrne did in 1977 or go down to defeat like Jim Florio in 1993?"

A February 1977 Eagleton-Rutgers poll showed Byrne trailing an unnamed Republican challenger by 26 points, 45%-19%.  He had an upside-down approval rating of 22%-71%.  In a July poll taken after Byrne won the Democratic primary with 30% of the vote against ten challengers, GOP State Sen. Raymond Bateman led by seven points, 46%-39%.  Byrne was re-elected by a 56%-42% margin.

More than half of the state's voters (51%) felt Florio didn't deserve a second term in a February 1993 Eagleton-Rutgers poll.  Florio had upside-down approvals of 36%-60%.  A post-primary poll taken in June showed Republican Christine Todd Whitman and Florio in a statistical dead heat, 44%-43%.  Whitman beat Florio by 26,093 votes, 49%-48%.

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Only twice have incumbent statewide officeholders lost primary elections.  They were both Republicans: in 1973, U.S. Rep. Charles Sandman defeated Governor William Cahill by a 58%-41% margin; and in 1978, when four-term U.S. Senator Clifford Case lost to Jeffrey Bell, a 35-year-old former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, by a 51%-49% margin.

In 1977, Governor Brendan Byrne had ten opponents in the Democratic primary, including two Congressmen, a State Senator, and his own Commissioner of Labor.  Byrne won with 30% of the vote; U.S. Rep. Robert Roe came in second with 23%.

The most high profile primary against an incumbent came in 2008, when 84-year-old U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg faced a major challenge from U.S. Rep. Robert Andrews.  Lautenberg won 59% of the vote in the Democratic primary, with 35% for Andrews and 6% for Morristown Mayor Donald Cresitello. 

Lautenberg has faced two minor challenges as an incumbent.  He won 81% against Bill Campbell and Lynne Speed in 1994 and 80% against Elnardo Webster (the father of a powerful Democratic lawyer) and Harold Young in 1988.

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