Kenneth Hand

March 31, 2009 - 10:26am

INSIDE EDGE

Union GOP hasn't sent a woman to Trenton since '80, and the story of Irene Griffin

By Wally Edge

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).

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