Matthew Rinaldo

Jerome M. Epstein (R-Scotch Plains) served in the State Senate from 1972 to 1974.

New Jersey's history of corrupt politicians even included a State Senator who went to jail for being a pirate. 

During the energy shortage in the 1970's, former State Sen. Jerome Epstein (R-Scotch Plains) was sentenced to nine years in prison after a jury convicted him of pirating about $4 million worth of oil from Exxon tanks on the Arthur Kill in Linden.   

Epstein, whose family owned fuel oil companies and gas stations, rented a 115-foot barge, the Luzitania, recruited a crew, and stole about 12 million gallons of oil during a systematic series of thefts that began in 1968.  He rigged gauges on the barge so that he could take 4,000 gallons of oil and have it look like he only took 2,000. After a nine week trial, the former Senator, his father and uncle, were sentenced to prison terms.

ELEC Photo

Former State Sen. Jerry Fitzgerald English

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.

 The Texas-born English (D-Summit) moved to New Jersey after law school at Boston College and Harvard when her husband took a job as Bell Labs researcher.  She founded a local conservation group in 1969, and in 1971, at the age of 36, she became the second woman to serve in the New Jersey State Senate.  English won a November 1971 special election to fill the remaining two months of a vacant Union County Senate seat.  She was not a candidate for a full term, and served until January 1972.

In 1972, English decided to run for Congress after eight-term U.S. Rep. Florence Dwyer (R-Elizabeth) announced her retirement.  She beat Richard Samuel, who had played a role in the New Jersey presidential campaigns of Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern, in the Democratic primary.  In the general election, State Sen. Matthew Rinaldo (R-Union) beat English by a wide margin, 64%-36% in a district that went 2-1 for Richard Nixon.  English never ran for office again.

U.S. Rep. Matthew Rinaldo, who passed away last year, was known for passing up chances to run for higher office.

Michael Doherty might have said that wild horses could not keep him out of the June GOP primary for State Senate, but his fear of being out of office completely might.  Doherty, according to a few of his friends, could back out because he's not quite ready to gamble his $50,000-a-year seat in the State Assembly.  He can threaten a primary challenge to State Sen.-elect Marcia Karrow, but in the end he could also back out and cut a deal to keep his Assembly seat.

Without blatantly challenging the testicular fortitude of the West Pointer, Doherty hasn't exactly shown a willingness to take huge risks in the past.  Indeed, he could be the Matthew Rinaldo of his generation, a reference to the late ten-term Congressman from Union County who was frequently touted as a statewide candidate but never pulled the trigger.

Matthew John Rinaldo (1931-2008)
Friends and rivals remember Matthew J. Rinaldo, a former Republican Congressman who died yesterday after a long bout with Parkinson's disease at age 77, for his bipartisan style and top notch constituent services.

For Rinaldo, a Republican, that bipartisanship was partly out of necessity. For the entirety of his 20 years in the House, he was a member of the minority party.

"There is no Republican now serving in the House of Representatives who has ever chaired a committee, gaveled a hearing to order, or scheduled a bill for debate on the House floor," he said in a statement announcing his retirement. "Unfortunately, I do not foresee any prospect of that changing in the near term."

Rinaldo served on the House Energy and Commerce Committee as well as the House Select Committee on Aging, and those who knew him say he was frustrated that he never got a chairmanship.

Two years later, the Republicans swept into power. But many of the newcomers of the "Republican Revolution," led by the new House Speaker Newt Gingrich, were not Rinaldo's ilk. They were rock-ribbed conservatives, while he was a moderate with strong labor ties and strong alliances with key Democrats.

He developed a political alliance with Elizabeth Mayor Thomas Dunn - a Democrat who endorsed Ronald Reagan in 1980 - and carried that heavily Democratic city during most, if not all, of his campaigns.

"They both worked across the aisle. That's why both of them were so successful. The key in new jersey has been, and still is, people who can appeal to both parties," said former Gov. Tom Kean. "I did the same thing."

New Jersey has seventeen living former Congressmen -- that number should go to nineteen next year with the retirements of Jim Saxton and Michael Ferguson.  The oldest is Peter Frelinghuysen, the 92-year-old father of Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen, who won an open seat in 1952 and served until his retirement in 1973. He lives in Morristown.  The youngest is Michael Pappas, a Somerset County Freeholder who won a seat in 1996 and lost it in 1998; he is 47.

*Cornelius Gallagher, 85, who served as a Hudson County Freeholder from 1953 to 1956 and as a Congressman from 1959 until his defeat in the 1972 Democratic primary. He lives in Hunterdon County.

*Robert Roe, 84, who served as Mayor of Wayne, Passaic County Freeholder and state Commissioner of Convervation and Economic Development before winning a House seat in a 1969 Special Election. He served until his retirement in 1992 and now runs a lobbying firm that specializes in transportation issues.

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.

Matthew Rinaldo, a Congressman from 1973 to 1993, died today.
Matthew J. Rinaldo, who represented New Jersey in the U.S. House of Representatives for twenty years, has passed away this morning. He was 77.

Rinaldo won an open House seat in 1972 when Florence Dwyer retired. He did not seek re-election in 1992, dropping his re-election bid in September to pursue private sector opportunities. Bob Franks took his seat. Rinaldo was elected to the Union County Board of Freeholders in 1963, and to the State Senate in 1972.

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

Linden Mayor Richard Gerbounka has endorsed John McCain for President, but declined to say who he would support for Congress in the hotly contested seventh district race between Democrat Linda Stender and Republican Leonard Lance.  Part of Linden is in the seventh.  Gerbounka was a Democratic Councilman until launching an Independent bid to unseat longtime Mayor John Gregorio in 2006.

Back in 1984, another Democratic Mayor from Union County endorsed a GOP presidential candidate.  In a much heralded announcement, Ronald Reagan won the backing of Thomas Dunn, who spent 28 years as the Mayor of Elizabeth.  That year, Reagan beat Walter Mondale in Elizabeth by nearly 4,000 votes, 56%-44%.  Reagan carried Linden by slightly less than 2,000 votes, also 56%-44%.  In other Democratic Union County strongholds, Reagan won Rahway by almost 2,000 votes (58%-42%), but lost Plainfield by almost 7,000 votes, 72%-28%.  But Reagan had no coattails: Democrat Bill Bradley, seeking a second term in the United States Senate, carried Elizabeth, Linden, Rahway and Plainfield by wide margins.

Several key GOP leaders approached Dr. Mehmet Oz, a nationally prominent cardiothoracic surgeon from Cliffside Park, to enter the race for U.S. Senator – but without success. Despite his national fundraising contacts and Oprah Winfrey’s infatuation with him, at some point Republicans will just stop asking Oz to run for office. He was mentioned as a U.S. Senate candidate in 2006, and as a State Senate candidate against Joseph Coniglio in 2007.