Harrison Williams

U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park) turns 86 in January. His term is up four years after that.

Massachusetts Legislature has passed a bill that will allow the Democratic governor to appoint an interim United States Senator to replace the late Ted Kennedy.  Five years ago, when there was a good chance that Democrat John Kerry might get elected president, the Democratic-controlled Legislature changed the law so that Republican Gov. Mitt Romney could not appoint Kerry's successor.  The state now has no Senator as voters await a special election.

In New Jersey, where polls show Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine trailing in his re-election bid, some Democratic leaders are talking about a contingency plan that might prevent Republican Christopher Christie from appointing a U.S. Senator, if Democrat Frank Lautenberg, who turns 86 in January, leaves office without finishing the final four years of his term.  If Corzine loses, one plan that will receive consideration, Democratic sources say, would be legislation passed during the lame duck session later this year taking the appointment away from the governor and forcing a quick special election.  Corzine could sign that bill before he leaves office in January.

The GOP's best hope of electing a Republican U.S. Senator could come with the election of a Republican governor.  Democrats, anxious to mainatin their filibuster-proof 60-vote majority, may not want to chance it.  And New Jersey's junior Senator, Robert Menendez, is the Chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

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. 

Left to right: Irene T. Griffin (R-Westfield), Florence P. Dwyer (R-Elizabeth), and Mildred Barry Hughes (D-Union Twp.)

Union County was a bit late when it came to electing women to the New Jersey Legislature, and then set some records by sending a woman to Congress and elected the first two women to the State Senate.  But Union County hasn't had a Republican Assemblywoman in almost 29 years.

Westfield Republican Irene Griffin became the first women to represent Union County in the State Assembly when won the seat in 1944 - two years after losing a GOP primary.  Griffin, a former Vice President of the Union County PTA, won the seat of Assemblyman Clifford Case (R-Rahway), who was seeking a seat in Congress. In the GOP primary, she placed fourth for four seats in a field of fourteen candidates.

She did not seek re-election in 1945 (until 1947, members of the lower house ran for one-year terms).  She sought to become the first woman in the State Senate in 1947, when Herbert Pascoe (R-Elizabeth) stepped down, but lost the GOP nod to Assemblyman Kenneth Hand (R-Elizabeth).

Griffin challenged incumbent Assemblywoman Florence Dwyer (R-Elizabeth) in the 1951 GOP primary, but was unsuccessful.  Dwyer defeated Griffin again in 1956, when the two faced off in a Republican congressional primary; in the general election, Dwyer unseated the incumbent Congressman, Harrison Williams (D-Plainfield).

U.S. Rep.-elect Leonard Lance will be tough to beat in 2010 after besting Democrat Linda Stender by nine percentage points

Democrats don't think it will be easy to  unseat soon-to-be freshman Leonard Lance from the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010.  Lance scored a 51%-42% victory over Linda Stender, who had been running for three years and had huge financial support from national Democrats.  The district has been Republican since Florence Dwyer ousted Harrison Williams in 1956. 

Frank Lautenberg becomes the first U.S. Senator from New Jersey to win a fifth term, but didn't set any records for winning percentages.  His 56% against former U.S. Rep. Richard Zimmer was his career best, but he didn't approach the 60% mark that Bill Bradley, Clifford Case and Harrison Williams had achieved back in a time when the state was more politically competitive.  Still, the 84-year-old Democrat is secure for the next six years, and did not have to sweat much after pushing back a primary challenge from U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews.

Ted Stevens is the first sitting United States Senator to be convicted on corruption charges since New Jersey's Harrison Williams on May 1, 1981.  Stevens, who has represented Alaska in the Senate since 1968, was found guilty on seven counts of making false statements on his Senate financial disclosure.  Williams, who was completing his fourth term, was convicted on nine counts of bribery and extortion charges connected to the ABSCAM scandal. Five U.S. Senators have been found guilty of felony charges; Williams is one of two Senators in U.S. history to serve in prison following a conviction.

If John Adler and Linda Stender win their races for Congress, they'll accomplish a feat that rarely occurs in New Jersey -- winning the seat of a retiring Congressman from the other party in a contest unrelated to the drawing of new districts. The last time this happened was in 1994, when Republican Frank LoBiondo won after Democrat William Hughes retired.

The last time the GOP failed to hold the seats of retiring incumbents was in 1964, when Democrat James Howard succeeded Republican James Auchincloss, and Democrat Paul Krebs followed Republican George Wallhauser.

With a 22-point lead in his bid for re-election, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released this morning, Frank Lautenberg is likely to break two new records -- he'll become the first five-term United States Senator in New Jersey history, and he'll break his own record as the oldest person to ever win a statewide election in this state.  But there is one more record that Lautenberg could break -- the biggest winning percentage in a U.S. Senate race. That record belongs to Bill Bradley, who won 64.2% against Mary Mochary in 1984.  

Lautenberg could become the fifth Senator in state history to win more than 60% of the vote; if this is the last campaign for the 84-year-old Democrat, it's not a bad way to go out -- especially since Lautenberg has never passed the 54% mark before.  He won 50.9% against Millicent Fenwick in 1982, 53.5% against Peter Dawkins in 1988, 50.3% against Chuck Haytaian in 1994, and 53.9% against Douglas Forrester in 2002.

John Adler could be the first Democrat to capture a congressional seat (Jim Saxton's seat) in his district since Thomas Ferrell won in 1882, and Linda Stender, if she wins, she'll be the first Democrat to hold that seat (Mike Ferguson's seat) since Harrison Williams lost to Florence Dwyer in 1956.  New Jersey's House seats, with the last time the other party held them:

Republicans have held the 7th district House seat since 1956, when Florence Dwyer, an Assemblywoman from Elizabeth, unseated two-term Democrat Harrison Williams.  Matthew Rinaldo, who passed away on Monday at age 77, occupied the seat for twenty years.  Now, with the retirement of Michael Ferguson, Democrats are slightly favored to win the seat in a contest between Assemblywoman Linda Stender and her GOP rival, State Sen. Leonard Lance.

Rinaldo began his political career in 1962 when he won a seat on the Union County Board of Freeholders.  When he ran for re-election to a second term in 1965, he lost narrowly (the initial tally, before the recount, said just one vote) to Arthur Fried, a Democratic Councilman from Westfield.  He came back two years later, defeating State Sen. Mildred Barry Hughes, the first woman to serve in the New Jersey State Senate, by 10,657 votes -- a 57%-43% margin.  When he ran for re-election in 1971, Rinaldo ran more than 16,000 votes ahead of his running mate, Frank McDermott, and more than 25,000 votes ahead of his nearest Democratic rival.