Byron Baer died on July 24, 2007 after spending more than 33 years as an Assemblyman and State Senator.  Linda Baer, a former Administrative Law Judge and Bergen County Freeholder,  is paying tribute to her late husband by wearing a diamond that was created using carbon from his cremated remains.

LifeGem Memorial Diamonds, in a press release issues last night, announced the completion and delivery of the diamond, saying that Byron Baer decided to create the diamond as a lasting tribute prior to his death.  "Byron thought the idea of being remembered every time his wife looked at a sparkling precious gem couldn't be more perfect," the press release said.

"Byron authored the open public meetings act, called The Sunshine Law and earned the nickname, The Sunshine Senator," said Linda Baer. "It only seems fitting that he became a Sunshine Diamond." 

Linda Baer worked with Feeney Funeral Home in Ridgewood, which offers LifeGem "in addition to other funeral services."

"Feeney Funeral Home is proud to help honor our home state senator." said David Feeney, the funeral home manager.

Just to be clear, would-be candidates don't wait until funerals to begin campaigning for open seats.   It took Hudson County Democrats less than an hour to convene conferences following the death of Jersey City Mayor/State Sen. Glenn Cunningham died in 2004.  Campaigns were underway before the funerals of Assemblymen Melvin Cottrell (R-Jackson) and Thomas Smith (R-Asbury Park), and there were political discussions at the funerals of Assemblymen Monroe Lustbader (R-Short Hills) and Alan Augustine (R-Scotch Plains). 

It took less time for Essex Democrats to pick Evelyn Williams (D-Newark) for a State Assembly seat after the death of Donald Tucker (D-Newark) than it did to pick Oadline Truitt (D-Newark) after Williams was arrested for shoplifting days after she took office.

Posturing doesn't always wait for an actual death certificate.  When State Senators Byron Baer (D-Englewood) and Walter Kavanaugh (R-Somerville) became ill, potential successors began to shore up votes in anticipation of a retirement.  And make no mistake: the campaign to succeed 85-year-old U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg has been underway for the last eight months.

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.

Burstein (D-Tenafly), now 86-years-old, was widely viewed as one of the most intellectually superior and independent members of the New Jersey Legislature, where he served from 1972 to 1982, but he was also a late bloomer who fell short in several opportunities to move up.  Burstein started out in politics in 1959 as counsel to the Jersey City Charter Commission and became active in Tenafly politics in the 1960's.  He was elected to the State Assembly in 1971, when legislative redistricting created a new Englewood/Teaneck seat that leaned toward the Democrats.  Running with Byron Baer, Burstein beat Jim O'Dowd (who would later serve as Bergenfield Mayor and Bergen County Freeholder) by 2,335 votes.

When legislative districts were redrawn for the 1973 elections, the newly-created 37th became even more Democratic.  But neither Burstein nor Baer got the chance to challenge the incumbent Republican Senator, Joseph Woodcock.  That opportunity went to Bergen County Democratic Chairman Matthew Feldman, a former Teaneck Mayor who had served in the Senate from 1966 to 1968.  Feldman easily beat Woodcock and Burstein and Baer coasted to win second terms.

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. 

After today's special election convention in District 23, a full one-quarter of the Senate will have entered the upper house by way of a special election: Raymond Lesniak (1983), Ronald Rice (1986), John Girgenti (1990), Robert Singer (1993), Thomas Kean, Jr. (2003), Paul Sarlo (2003), Loretta Weinberg (2005), Sandra Cunningham (2007), and James Beach (2009).  An eleventh Senator, Kevin O'Toole, initially served in the Senate in 2001 after winning a special election convention; he later returned to the Assembly and won a Senate seat in November 2007.

Lesniak replaced John Gregorio, who left the Senate following his criminal conviction.  Rice, Girgenti and Singer were elected following the deaths of Senators John Caufield, Frank Graves and John Dimon, respectively.  Kean took the seat of Richard Bagger, who resigned to concentrate on his career at Pfizer.  Sarlo became a Senator when the incumbent, Garry Furnari, was appointed to serve as a Superior Court Judge.  Weinberg won the seat of Byron Baer, who resigned for health reasons.  Cunningham replaced Joseph Doria, who resigned to become state Community Affairs Commissioner.  Beach, the most recent addition to the Senate won a special election convention after John Adler was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

PolitickerNJ.com was deeply saddened by the death of Dr. David Rebovich, a prominent, popular and powerful political science professor at Rider University, and the Director of the Rider University Institute for New Jersey Politics, on October 12 . He was among the very best that New Jersey had to offer and it was our considerable honor to run his weekly column for the last six years. We miss him.

Among the favorites of the New Jersey political community who passed away in 2007: Fort Lee Mayor Jack Alter; former State Senator Byron Baer; former Assemblyman Neil Duffy; former Senate President Wesley Lance; former Burlington County Democratic Chairman George Lee; former State Sen. Alexander Menza, a candidate for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination in 1978; former Bergen County Executive William McDowell; former Plainfield Mayor Albert McWilliams; former Rep. Joseph Minish; former Assemblywoman Angela Perun; Central New Jersey radio personality and former NJSEA spokesman for Bernard Spigner; political strategist Greg Stevens, who served as Chief of Staff to Gov. Thomas Kean former Public Advocate Stanley Van Ness; former Assemblyman Harold Pareti; former State Senator Richard Van Wagner; former Wayne Mayor/Superior Court Judge David Waks; and George Warrington, the former Executive Director of New Jersey Transit and the former President of Amtrak.

My Tribute to Byron Baer
By Paul Swibinski

I met Byron in 1976, when he ran for Congress against Henry Helstoski, who eventually won after a scandal involving over 2000 altered absentee ballots. I was a young volunteer at that time. Later I became his media consultant and worked on all of his campaigns.

In 1993, Byron and Englewood Mayor Donald Aronson (also a friend and client) both wanted to succeed retiring Senator Matty Feldman and appeared before the District 37 county committee convention seeking the party endorsement.

Paul Fader was working for Don and I was working for Byron. Paul and I were both very intense and we began arguing over where campaign posters would be placed. We had one of those "gentleman square-offs" where we circled each other, both waiting for someone to separate us because neither wanted to throw a punch. Fortunately someone did!

It’s among the most defining relics of Byron Baer’s life: a 1961 mug shot taken in Jackson, Mississippi, just before his 45-day stint at Parchman Penitentiary.   In the black-and-white photo, a 31-year-old Baer, who had just been arrested for being a Freedom Rider, stares at the camera defiantly, with his head cocked slightly to one side.   

Baer had never even seen the picture until he was visited last month by a fellow Freedom Rider who he had taken under his wing back in 1961.  But even in his last days, on painkillers and gradually slipping away, he was visibly pleased to see it, his family said.     

Like that former freedom rider, today dozens of people – politicians and others -- came out to a Hackensack funeral home to show respect to the local politician who, in one way or another, touched them.  They had many stories about them, but there was a common thread to all of them: Baer stood up for the public, and most of all the downtrodden. 

Byron Baer was no stranger to run-ins with the law, although his experiences were no exactly typical of many politicians he met during a career in politics and civil rights that spanned nearly half a century.  While Baer is best known for spending time in a Mississippi jail in 1961, when he and other Freedom Fighters were arrested for protesting the treatment of African Americans in the deep south, he was actually arrested again thirteen years later, while serving his second term in the New Jersey State Assembly.

The sponsor of legislation to improve working conditions for migrant workers, Baer was charged with tresspassing after he made a surprise visit to a migrant labor camp in Gloucester County -- and his arm was broken when the crew chief, Marcos Portolatin, hit the legislator with a five-foot board while chasing the group off the property.  Alex Moriarty, the the director of the Farmworkers Cooperative of New Jersey, claimed he was beaten by Portolatin and ten workers.  The windows of Baer's 1970 chevrolet station wagon were also smashed.