Nicholas Brady

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.

Seventeen New Jerseyans have served in the President's cabinet since James Monroe named Samuel Southard as his Secretary of the Navy in 1823.

Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist will live in New Jersey for part of 2008; he has accepted a one-year appointment to teach a course on brain damage tele-diagnosis at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

There is a vacancy in the office of United States Senator from New Jersey for the first time since April 12, 1982, when Nicholas Brady was appointed to fill the seat of Harrison Williams, who had resigned on March 11, 1982.

Frank Lautenberg becomes the senior Senator from New Jersey for the second time. He was the senior Senator from January 4, 1997 until January 4, 2001. The last New Jersey Senator to have two separate tenures as the senior Senator was W. Warren Barbour. Barbour was appointed to the Senate in 1931, became senior Senator in 1935, and lost his seat in 1936. He won a 1938 special election to fill a vacancy in the state's other Senate seat and became senior Senator again in 1943.

Who was the last appointed United States Senator from New Jersey? If you answered Nicholas Brady, you're wrong.