Jim Courter

Lafayette College Special Collections & College Archives Photo

Helen Meyner campaigns for Congress in 1974. The former First Lady's bid to unseat freshman U.S. Rep. Joseph Maraziti was the first campaign for Don Herche, a pollster and consultant who passed away last night

Democratic pollster Don Herche, who passed away last night, began his political career in 1974 as a young staffer on the campaign of Democrat Helen Stevenson Meyner, the former First Lady of New Jersey who was a candidate for Congress in a heavily Republican district.

The story of Meyner's congressional campaign actually begins four years earlier when Republicans cut a deal to clear the field for GOP State Chairman Nelson Gross in the race for U.S. Senate.  One potential primary rival, Morris County State Sen. Joseph Maraziti, dropped his statewide bid with the promise that he would chair the committee that drew new congressional districts after the 1970 census.

Maraziti drew what became known as the Maraziti district: a Democratic House seat in Hudson County was eliminated (forcing two incumbents to face off in a primary), and replaced with a new seat in northwestern New Jersey that included Hunterdon, Sussex and Warren counties, part of Morris, and a small part of western Mercer.  The district was so Republican that Richard Nixon carried it with 70% of the vote against George McGovern.  (In 2008, Republican House candidates won 64% of the vote in the towns that make up the old thirteenth district.)

As a candidate for Congress, the 60-year-old Maraziti won 50% in the GOP primary, defeating Sussex Assemblyman Walter Keough-Dwyer (25%) and Mercer Assemblyman Karl Weidel (17%). 

In the general election, Maraziti faced Meyner, 43, a cousin of Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson and the wife of Robert Meyner, who served as Governor from 1954 to 1962.  Maraziti won 56%-43%.

As a freshman Congressman, Maraziti won a seat on the House Judiciary Committee, which put him in the national spotlight as a staunch defender of Nixon.  He voted against all three articles of impeachment.   Meyner decided to run again in 1974.

Her campaign, the one Herche worked on, was helped by the disclosure that Maraziti put his girlfriend, 35-year-old Linda Collinson, on his congressional payroll in a no-show job  -- one of the highest salaries on his staff -- while she worked at a Whippany law firm.  Collinson was outed when she applied for a loan with the House credit union and a staffer who answered the phone in Maraziti's office said she had never heard of her.  Real estate records also listed the house where Collinson lived as owned by Maraziti.

Late in the campaign, the Hackettstown Star-Gazette fired their managing editor, Donald Thatcher, after the Meyner campaign pointed out that Maraziti put Thatcher on his congressional payroll to write press releases.  Nicholas DeRienzo, who was the general manager of two northwestern New Jersey radio stations, WCRV and WFMV-FM, was also put on Maraziti's payroll.

New Jersey has eighteen living former Congressmen -- that number should go to twenty next year with the retirements of Jim Saxton and Michael Ferguson:

This week's Winners & Losers: Click here

Former Rep. Jim Courter has quit his post as a National Finance Co-Chairman of John McCain’s presidential campaign after his telecommunications company was fined $1.3 million by the Federal Communications Commission, according to a Portfolio.com report.  The FCC found that IDT, where Courter is the Chief Executive Officer, failed to properly disclose a contract with the government of Haiti. 

Over the last fifty years, Linda Stender was one of just seven challengers – and one of only two Democrats – to come within two percentage points of unseat an incumbent Congressman when she held Michael Ferguson to a 49%-48% win in 2006. If she wins her second bid in 2008 for the seat Ferguson has decided to vacate, Stender would become the first member of the “I almost won” group to actually serve in Congress.

Five New Jerseyans have contributed $8,000 to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's 2006 re-election campaign in Texas' 22nd district, including $2,000 from former GOP Congressman Jim Courter and $1,000 from Lionel Kaplan, a Democratic fundraiser from Princeton who served on the panel that drew new congressional districts after the 2000 census. Courter and Kaplan also gave to DeLay's 2004 re-election. DeLay's other New Jersey donors: Jeffrey Citron of Brielle, Joy Levin of Manalapan, and Andrew Schechtel of Princeton.