Ralph DeRose

Left to right: Charles Sandman, Ralph DeRose, Anthony Imperiale, Raymond Bateman and Frank "Pat" Dodd.

If you are a New Jersey State Senator, you are more likely to die in office than to win higher elective office. Under the current State Constitution, 49 sitting State Senators have asked voters to promote them to a new office, but only twelve have won.

Nearly half of the State Senators seeking higher office have run for Governor and all 21 have lost: Malcolm Forbes (1957), Wayne Dumont (1965), Raymond Bateman (1977) and James E. McGreevey (1997) won major party nominations but list the general election -- each time to an incumbent; William Schluter ran as an Independent in 2001; and Walter Jones (1961), Charles Sandman (1965), William Kelly (1969), Frank McDermott (1969), William Ozzard (1969), Harry Sears (1969), Ralph DeRose (1973), Raymond Garramone (1977), Frank Dodd (1981), William Hamilton (1981), Joseph Merlino (1981), James Wallwork (1981), Bill Gormley (1989) and Gerald Cardinale (1989).

J. Edward Crabiel, a former State Senate Minority Leader, became N.J. Secretary of State after dropping his gubernatorial campaign and endorsing Brendan Byrne in 1973. He was later indicted for rigging state highway bids, but the charges were dropped.

David Crabiel, the longtime Middlesex County Freeholder who passed away earlier today, was the younger brother of J. Edward Crabiel, known as “Concrete Eddie,” who was one of the state’s most powerful political figures in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.  Edward Crabiel was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Governor in 1973, and served as New Jersey Secretary of State until his indictment ended his political career.

The son of a former Milltown Councilman, Crabiel was the Mayor of Milltown from 1947 to 1951.  (David Crabiel served as a Milltown Councilman from 1960 to 1968, and as Mayor from 1968 to 1979.)  He was elected to the State Assembly in 1955 and served five terms before moving up to the State Senate in 1965 – after the U.S. Supreme Court’s one-man, one-vote decision caused Middlesex County to increase their number of Senators from one (John Lynch, the father of the future Senate President) to three.  He was re-elected to the Senate in 1967 and did not seek re-election in 1971.  He was the Senate Minority Leader in 1968.

When key Democratic county leaders picked Brendan Byrne, a Superior Court Judge and former Essex County Prosecutor, to be their candidate for Governor in 1973, Crabiel (and another gubernatorial candidate, State Sen. Richard Coffee of Mercer County) dropped out of the race a month before the primary and endorsed Byrne.  Byrne defeated State Sen. Ralph DeRose (D-Essex) and Assemblywoman Ann Klein (D-Morris) in the primary.

After Byrne won the general election, he appointed Crabiel to serve as Secretary of State – a position that historically had greater political influence up until the time of Byrne’s governorship. 

During his first year in Byrne’s cabinet, Crabiel was indicted by a state grand jury on charges that he conspired to control highway construction projects.  (The indictment was connected to his position as President of the Little Falls-based Franklin Contracting Company, which was one of the state’s largest highway contractors.) When Byrne, who came into office as a champion of ethics reform, suggested he resign, Crabiel told the Governor to keep his suggestions to himself.  Byrne later reduced the Secretary of State’s job to only those ceremonial duties required by law.  He eventually took an eight-month leave of absence as he fought the corruption charges.