Frank Hague

Nearly thirty years ago, former Associated Press Trenton Bureau Chief John Kolesar wrote a story for New Jersey Monthly listing the biggest political scandals in New Jersey history.  Among the best:

Frank "I Am the Law" Hague ruled Jersey City from 1917 to 1947

When Douglas Salters started as an aide to Jersey City Councilman James McLaughlin in 1993, the first thing his fellow City Hall staffers showed him was a desk. Not just any desk, but the one that belonged to the legendary Frank Hague.

Hague was mayor from 1917 to 1947 and word is he profited richly from it, becoming a millionaire despite never making a salary of more than $8,500 a year.  His iron grip on local politics, though never matched, became the symbol of Jersey City's notorious political culture.  His famous desk, which is still in City Hall, has a special drawer that Hague would push out, allowing guests to surreptitiously and conveniently deposit bribes.

"They said ‘This is Jersey City'... I was one day in office when I was shown that, and I realized that this was a rare kind of place," said Salters, who ran for council earlier this year in Ward B on the reform "One Jersey City" slate.

Yesterday, Salters was part of a group of about 80 who were protesting in front of City Hall, where the city council was about to have its first session since Thursday's corruption bust that took down two of Hudson County's mayors, an Assemblyman, the Jersey City Council president, a Jersey City Deputy Mayor and several city employees and political operatives.  It remains to be seen whether the feds will press on against Mayor Jerramiah Healy, who turns up as "JC Official 4" in one of the criminal complaints.

Barbara Buono will become the first woman to run on a Democratic ticket for statewide office since Thelma Parkinson sought a United States Senate seat in 1930, if Jon Corzine picks her to run for Lt. Governor.

The Senator from New Jersey was Walter Edge, who resigned in November 1929 to become the U.S. Ambassador to France.  The Governor, Morgan Larson, appointed David Baird, a Camden County businessman, to serve as a caretaker Senator. 

Edge's resignation triggered two separate races in November 1930: a special election to fill the remaining two months of Edge's term; and a contest for a full six-year Senate term.

Republicans nominated the same candidate for both campaigns: Englewood industrialist Dwight Morrow, who was serving as the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico. Morrow won 71% of the vote in a three-way primary with three-term U.S. Rep. Franklin Fort (21%) and former U.S. Senator Joseph Frelinghuysen (8%). President Herbert Hoover backed Morrow.

Democrats picked Alexander Simpson, a four-term State Senator from Hudson County and an ally of Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague, to run for the full term.  But instead of nominating Simpson to face off against Morrow in the special, Democrats chose to court the relatively new woman's vote by running Thelma Parkinson, a 32-year-old Democratic State Committeewoman from Vineland and a protégé of U.S. Rep. Mary Norton (D-Jersey City).

Morrow won both races, beating Parkinson and Simpson by 59%-39% margins.

The story of newly-elected Jersey City Councilwoman Nidia Rivera Lopez allegedly being a resident of Florida is reminiscent of another Jersey City politician with a residency problem.  Thomas Gangemi was forced to resign as Mayor of Jersey City in 1963 after it was disclosed that he was not a U.S. citizen.

Gangemi was born in Italy and emigrated in 1913, at age ten, but he was never naturalized.  He became part of Mayor Frank Hague's political machine, and was elected Hudson County Supervisor in 1960 and Mayor in 1961.  Gangemi applied for a passport to travel to Italy in 1963 and listed Jersey City as his place of birth.  His career unraveled when the U.S. Department of State was unable to verify that. 

Democrats had high hopes for Michael DeVita, a 35-year-old World War II Army captain who was elected Mayor of Paterson in 1947.  DeVita unseated four-term Republican Mayor William Furrey by a massive 59%-41% margin.  He was re-elected in 1949 with 65% of the vote despite his indictment on charges that he told a police officer to give false testimony in a state probe of illegal gambling; three months after the general election, a state Appellate Court judge dismissed the indictment.   

In September 1951, former Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague alleged that the New Jersey Democratic Party was controlled by reputed mobster Abner "Longy" Zwillman, and named DeVita, the Passaic County Democratic Chairman, as one of the Democratic leaders Zwillman controlled.  DeVita denied the allegations, but lost his bid for a third term that November to Republican Lester Titus by a 52%-48% margin.  DeVita, at age 39, never returned to public office.

Jerramiah Healy has won three campaigns for Mayor of Jersey City in five years without ever being forced into a runoff election - the first Mayor to do that since the legendary Frank Hague won his last election in 1945. The Healy slate also won six of the seven Council seats decided in yesterday's vote, with the chance to pick up two more when Ward A Councilman Michael Sottolano and Ward F Councilwoman Viola Richardson run in a June 9 runoff election. 

Healy won 53% of the vote in a five-candidate field, besting two well-known challengers: Louis Manzo, a former Assemblyman and Hudson County Freeholder who was making his fifth bid for Mayor; and Assemblyman L. Harvey Smith, a former Acting Mayor, State Senator, and City Council President. 

But one frequent critic of the Mayor remains in office: Ward E Councilman Steven Fulop won a massive 63% of the vote against four opponents, including Guy "Squab" Catrillo, who ran on Healy' slate.  The Healy campaign, sensing Fulop's strength, essentially pulled out of the Ward E race a few weeks ago.

If Jerramiah Healy tops the 50% mark today, he will become the first Mayor of Jersey City to win three elections without a runoff since the legendary Frank Hague.

Healy won a 2004 special election 28%-24% over Assemblyman Louis Manzo, with Acting Mayor L. Harvey Smith running a strong third with 22%.  When he ran for re-election in 2005, he won 75% of the vote against former City Councilwoman Melissa Holloway.

Runoffs have been common in Jersey City elections in recent years.  In 2001, former U.S. Marshal Glenn Cunningham led City Council President (now Hudson County Executive) Thomas DeGise 38%-24% in the May election, and won the runoff 53%-47%.  Bret Schundler elected in a nineteen-candidate 1992 special election, won re-election with 68% in 1993.  But in 1997, he fell two votes short of winning 50% and after a court battle, beat Healy 59%-41% in the runoff.

When Dr. Paul Jordan, a reformer who toppled the Jersey City Democratic machine when he won a 1971 special election for Mayor, ran for Governor six years later, City Clerk Thomas F.X. Smith beat Jordan's handpicked successor.  Smith won 50% against William Macchi, the Jersey City Director of Human Resources.  That effectively ended Jordan's gubernatorial campaign and caused the defeat of Jordan allies in the State Senate (Walter Sheil ousted two-term State Sen. James Dugan, the Democratic State Chairman) and Assembly in the primary election a few weeks later.  Smith served one-term and unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for Governor in 1981.

Jersey City residents will go to the polls tomorrow to either elect their next mayor or set the stage for a runoff next month.

Four candidates are taking on Mayor Jerramiah Healy in this city of 240,000, and the most well-funded among them, former Assemblyman Louis Manzo, has only one-tenth of the funds Healy does.   Also running are Assemblyman L. Harvey Smith, good government activist Dan Levin and police detective Phil Webb.  

There are also 42 candidates for council on the ballot -- a relatively small number by historical Jersey City standards.   

Healy, who had raised $3.1 million as of the last report with the Election Law Enforcement Commission, has been considered the favorite throughout the race.  He's rolled our one big name state endorsement after another, and spent this morning campaigning at the Journal Square PATH station with Newark Mayor Cory Booker.  He's hitched his campaign to President Barack Obama, and by now most Jersey City residents with cable television have seen Obama's two-year-old remarks praising Healy, then an early endorser of his underdog candidacy.  

Conventional wisdom dictates that the best chance someone has to upset Healy is to force him into a runoff by keeping him from getting a majority of the vote.  But Manzo, making his fifth bid for mayor, sees an upset in the making, one so large that it will overshadow John Kenny's 1949 defeat of Frank Hague Eggers, which ended the influence of Jersey City's three-decade mayor and powerful political boss, Frank Hague.  

"Based on what we've seen in our polling in the last week, the undecideds stay high and the other guys in the race were not drawing a significant amount of votes," said Manzo,  who got the front-page endorsement of the Jersey Journal this weekend.   "If the undecideds break one way or the other, this could be a first ballot win for us."

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.

If Linda Stender wins her race against Leonard Lance, she would become just the sixth woman to represent New Jersey in the U.S. House of Representatives since the ratification of the 19th Ammendment in 1920 -- and just the second to go without beating an incumbent.

Four of New Jersey's five Congresswomen went to Washington after defeating an incumbent: Mary Norton, a Hudson County Freeholder who went to Congress in 1924 when she defeated incumbent John Eagan in the Democratic primary with the backing of Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague; Florence Dwyer, an Assemblywoman from Elizabeth, who ousted two-term Democrat Harrison Williams in 1956; Helen Meyner, the former First Lady of New Jersey, who beat freshman Republican Joseph Maraziti in 1974; and former Ridgewood Board of Education President Marge Roukema, who unsteated three-term Democrat Andrew Maguire in 1980.