U.S. Senate

New York Senator Charles Schumer, who took over the chairmanship of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee from Jon Corzine after the '04 elections, has spoken with Acting Governor Richard Codey and asked him to consider running for the United States Senate next year, according to sources close to Codey. Schumer pulled Codey aside at an event last month commemorating the fourth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attack and told him he should take a look at the Senate race.

Edward Edwardswas a product of Jersey City Mayor Frank Haugue's Hudson County political machine. He served two years as a State Senator before winning election as the Governor of New Jersey in 1919. It was in that primary that Hague emerged as a dominant player in statewide politics: aided by a huge plurality in Hudson County, Edwards won the Democratic primary by a 54%-46% margin over former State Senator Edward Nugent, the Essex County Democratic Chairman. The big issue that year was Prohibition, and Edwards (the anti-prohibition, "wet" candidate) won a narrow 52%-48% victory over a wealthy Trenton businessman, Newton Bugbee.In the 1920 presidential election, Warren Harding carried New Jersey in a landslide and helped Republicans sweep elections for the State Assembly. The GOP won 58 of the 60 Assembly seats.

In those days, New Jersey Governors could serve only one three-year term; the state Constitution had term limits that prohibited any Governor from seeking re-election. So Edwards decided to run for the U.S. Senate against an incumbent, Republican Senator Joseph Frelinghuysen.

Frelinghuysen, a Somerset County Republican and a cousin of future Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen, had spent six years as a State Senator (and one as Senate President) and several years as President of the State Board of Education and as President of the State Board of Agriculture when he unseated freshman Democratic Senator James Martine by a 56%-39% margin in 1916. In the 1916 election, Wilson was re-elected to the Presidency, but lost his home state to Republican Charles Evans Hughes.

The 1922 campaign became a sort of referendum on the national Republican agenda. It was the mid-term election for the scandal-plagued Harding. Frelinghuysen supported Prohibition, Blue Laws, restrictions on immigration, and mandatory English lessons for foreign born citizens. Edwards campaigned on the slogan "Wine, Women and Song," supporting the repeal of the 18th amendment, the legalization of beer and wine, and a cultural liberalism that appealed to the state's ethnic voters.

Edwards beat Frelinghuysen, 55%-44%, and the Democrats picked up five seats in New Jersey's 12-member House delegation. His 11-point margin of victory helped Hague's gubernatorial candidate, Judge George Silzer (a former Middlesex County Democratic Chairman who had lost the Democratic nomination for Governor in 1910 to Woodrow Wilson), win by a narrow margin.

Five Republicans lined sough the GOP nomination to take on Edwards in 1928: former Senator Frelinghuysen, seeking a political comeback after six years in the insurance business; Republican National Committeeman Hamilton Fish Kean, a banker and the brother of former U.S. Senator John Kean (as well as the grandfather of future Governor Thomas Kean) who had unsuccessfully challenged incumbent Walter Edge in the 1924 U.S. Senate primary; former Governor Edward Stokes, a South Jerseyan who had served as Governor from 1905 to 1908; former two-term Congressman Edward Gray, a former Secretary to Governor Stokes who had finished third in the 1924 primary behind Edge and Kean; and Republican State Committee Vice Chairwoman Lillian Ford Feickert, the former President of the New Jersey Suffrage Association and the first woman to seek a major party nomination for U.S. Senate.

The primary was especially bitter. Stokes, seeking a political comeback after losing two races for the U.S. Senate and one for Governor, charged that Kean and Frelinghuysen were using their personal wealth to buy a U.S. Senate seat. He opposed the direct election of U.S. Senators, claiming that only the very wealthy could afford to mount expensive statewide campaigns.

The primary results were close: Kean was the winner with 34% of the vote, followed by Stokes (29%) and Frelinghuysen (28%). Feickert and Gray each received 5%. The turnout in the 1928 primary was 497,580 -- 58% more than the 215,242 votes cast in the 2002 Republican U.S. Senate primary.

In the general election, Prohibition was again a key issue, and Edwards told voters he was "as wet as the Atlantic Ocean." But in early October, Kean took an unlikely position, saying he too was "wet." While Kean lost the support of the Anti-Saloon League, but was able to take Prohibition off the table in the Senate race.

New Jersey followed the national political tide, with Republican Herbert Hoover carrying New Jersey by 309,000 votes over Democrat Alfred E. Smith. Kean defeated Edwards by over 233,000 votes, 58%-42%.

Edwards fell upon hard times after leaving the Senate in 1929. He went bankrupt following the state market crash, broke his political ties with Hague (who refused to support him for Governor in 1931), and was charged with fraud and corruption. In January, 1931, Edwards committed suicide.

Kean also became a one-term Senator. The new Democratic President, Franklin Roosevelt, was popular in New Jersey, and Kean had opposed the early part of the New Deal in the U.S. Senate. His opponent was the popular incumbent Governor, A. Harry Moore, a close ally of Hague. Moore defeated Kean by 231,000 votes, 58%-41%.

DOMINICAN AMERICAN COUNCIL OF NJ ENDORSES CORZINE FOR GOVERNOR
Council calls Corzine a "champion" of Latino issues

U.S. Senator Jon S. Corzine was endorsed by the Dominican American Council of New Jersey. The group, which lauded Corzine's accomplishments in the U.S. Senate, made its announcement on Sunday in Wood-Ridge.

Three years ago today, Bob Torricelli's notoriously pugilistic - and corrupt - life as an elected official came to an end with a Chang and a simper, at a packed statehouse press conference where he choked up, cried as if on cue, bemoaned the loss of civility in the public arena, and channeled Elmer Gantry. "When did we become such an unforgiving people?" he wailed, teary-eyed, "When did we stop believing in and trusting each other?"

It was exactly three years ago today that Robert Torricelli announced that he was dropping out of the United States Senate race. Republican Douglas Forrester was on his way to Washington -- 13 points ahead of Torricelli in a Star-Ledger/Rutgers-Eagleton poll released a few days earlier. Torricelli's own polls showed his negatives at 75%.

Where are they now?

Bob Torricelli was convicted of leaving the scene of an accident after a fender bender in Lambertville. He claimed it was his ex-wife driving, but the Municipal Court Judge (and the Appeals Court Judge) didn't see it that way. He's making money, dabbling in politics (he used some of his $2 million warchest to derail Howard Dean in Iowa last year), and got a lucrative appointment from a federal judge whose appointment he helped secure.

Doug Forrester is the Republican nominee for Governor, running about 4-10 percentage points behind Jon Corzine.

Frank Lautenberg, who succeeded his nemesis in the Senate, seems to be enjoying his return to the Senate -- perhaps so much that he'll run again in 2008, when he turns 84-years-old.

Frank Pallone, who was offered the Democratic nod for U.S. Senate, accepted, and then after turning off his cell phone and taking a walk through downtown Princeton, changed his mind -- now he's campaigning hard to get the Senate appointmen if Corzine is elected Governor.

Ken Snyder, Torricelli's campaign manager, is back in Pennsylvania where he's running a consulting firm. He did the TV ads for Atlantic City mayoral candidate Bob Levy in his June '05 primary against Lorenzo Langford. Torricelli's spokeswoman, Debra DeShong, went on to work for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and presidential candidate John Kerry before becoming as Director of Communications and Public Affairs at the United Nations Foundation in December 2004.

Bill Pascoe, Forrester's campaign manager, is running a consulting firm in Chicago. He returned to New Jersey last spring as Communications Director for Bret Schundler's campaign. Forrester's Communications Director, Mark Pfeifle, is now the spokesman for FEMA. (No "one disaster to another jokes, please.)

Angelo Genova, who argued for the Democrats before the New Jersey Supreme Court that it was still feasible to flip Senate candidates, is still in court: he's representing Loretta Weinberg in her challenge to the results of the Special Election Convention for State Senate in the 37th district.

Peter Sheridan, the GOP lawyer, was appointed by President Bush to serve as a U.S. District Court Judge two years ago. He's still waiting for the Senate to confirm him. The other Republican lawyer, Bill Baroni, was elected to the State Assembly in 2003 -- the only Republican to unseat a Democratic incumbent.

David Chang, the Korean businessman who played a key role in ending Torricelli's political career, was released from federal prison on October 1, 2003. If you know where Chang is today, e-mail us. James Treffinger, who was the front runner for the GOP Senate nomination until FBI agents raided his office just days after the filing deadline, was released from federal prison on December 17, 2004. He is teaching at a church in Bloomfield. Kenneth Pasternak, the millionaire stock broker who briefly flirted with a bid for the GOP Senate nomination (against Torricelli it would have been the "Battle of the Day Traders"), has been charged with securities fraud.

James E. McGreevey, the Governor who stood beside his onetime rival and onetime friend as Torricelli ended his political career, was gone less than two years later. Now Howard Stern is offering a $25,000 prize to anyone who can get McGreevey to go on the air with him for three minutes.

The race for governor of New Jersey may be warming up but the shadow race for the Senate is stalled. According to the most recent results from the Fairleigh Dickinson University poll, 44% of likely voters have no definite opinion of whom among New Jersey's Congressional Democrats they'd want to take Jon Corzine's US Senate seat. If Corzine were to win his bid for governor, 29% confess they just "don't know" who should replace him in the Senate, while another 15% say "any of them" or "none of them" or "it doesn't matter."

Press Release | Toplines

Several Republican leaders are saying that Bill Spadea, the Republican nominee for Congress against Rush Holt in 2004, is mulling a bid for the United States Senate next year. The former Marine and past College Republican National Chairman could wind up as the conservative primary rival State Senator Thomas Kean, Jr. has been trying so hard to avoid. Spadea was expected to run again for the 12th district seat (he won 40% last year), but abruptly withdrew from the race last month. He is also considered a possible candidate for Mercer County Executive in 2007.

A district-by-district look at the forty contests for the New Jersey State Senate to take place in November 2007:

The campaign season in New Jersey doesn't end on November 7th, and there may be at least three good races to watch before the middle of January. If Jon Corzine wins election as Governor, the very best is likely to be the free-for-all insider contest for his Senate seat. Add to that several potential leadership fights in the Legislature. On the Democratic side, Joseph Roberts seems to be the odds-on favorite to become the next Assembly Speaker (Albio Sires is stepping down after four years, and is hoping to go to Congress if Bob Menendez runs for U.S. Senate), but there is still a contest to succeed Roberts as Majority Leader. Insiders say the man to beat is Wilfredo Caraballo, an Essex County Democrat who would become the second Hispanic to hold a top legislative leadership post). Caraballo claims to have the votes, but that hasn't stopped other contenders -- Assembly Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Bonnie Watson Coleman (the Democratic State Chairwoman) and Assistant Majority Leader Neil Cohen from backing off. A third Majority Leader candidate, Loretta Weinberg, is presently contesting her one-vote loss in a State Senate special election convention. (A woman has not held a top legislative leadership post since Marion West Higgins was Speaker in 1965, and a Democratic woman never has.)

Both Republican leaders might face challenges: Anthony Bucco, who served as Co-Majority Leader from 2002 to 2004, is reportedly eyeing a challenge to Senate Minority Leader Leonard Lance; and several Republicans are looking at contesting a second term for Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce, especially if the GOP loses seats this November. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Wayne Bryant has already discussed a possible challenge to Majority Leader (and Hudson County Democratic Chairman) Bernard Kenny with several of his colleagues.

The mother of all contests could potentially come on the Senate Democratic side, where Richard Codey will seek to return as Senate President after more than a year as both a Senate boss and Acting Governor. A successful challenge to Codey seems unlikely, especially while the Essex County Democrat maintains huge approval ratings statewide, but it wouldn't be the first time a Governor-elect seeks to involve himself in legislative leadership matters -- or in Senate politics. A possible scenario could be the appointment of Codey to the United States Senate (does Jon Corzine really want his predecessor at his Trenton table?) and a contest for the Senate Presidency between Kenny and Judiciary Committee Chairman John Adler. (If Corzine does send Codey to the U.S. Senate and not Menendez, does that mean he'll need to assure Kenny the Senate Presidency to pacify angry Hudson Democrats?)

The Bergen County Civil War over the 37th district State Senate seat may have extended into the 2006 U.S. Senate race. Sources say Congressman Bob Menendez turned down Jon Corzine's request that he become involved in Loretta Weinberg's bid to replace Byron Baer. Menendez is close to Joseph Ferriero, the Bergen County Democratic Chairman who supported Ken Zisa for the seat. Menendez has been viewed as a leading candidate for appointment to the Senate if Corzine, who is 18 points ahead of Republican Doug Forrester in the most recent independent poll, is elected Governor. Another possible Senate contender, Congressman Rob Andrews, seems to have elevated his standing with Corzine. "He has to make a choice between governing the way he should, and responding to the party bosses," Andrews told Star-Ledger columnist Tom Moran. "This is the first time he's had to make that choice. And he made the right choice."