Wesley Lance

Essex County Democratic Chairman Dennis Carey (left) and State Sen. Donal Fox (D-South Orange) in the early 1960's.

Leonard Lance offered a lesson in New Jersey political history during his farewell address to the State Senate on Monday - but unfortunately got one of his facts wrong. Lance spoke of his first memory of the Senate, going to Trenton in 1956, at age three and a half, when his father was the Senator from Hunterdon County and watching some Senators like Wayne Dumont (the Senate President), Frank "Hap" Farley and Mark Anton. While Lance's knowledge is always impressive, he got one thing wrong: Anton wasn't in the Senate in 1956; he lost re-election two months earlier.

Anton, the Chairman of the Suburban Propane Gas Corporation, was a half-term Republican from Essex County who was elected in a 1953 special election after Alfred Clapp, who had mounted an unsuccessful campaign for the GOP gubernatorial election, resigned to become a Superior Court Judge. When Anton sought a full term in 1955, he found himself in a feud with former U.S. Attorney William Tompkins, a former Assemblyman from Essex County who was at the time serving as the Assistant U.S. Attorney General. Anton and Tompkins were both interested in seeking the Republican nomination for Governor in 1957.

Tompkins, who considered challenging Anton himself (he ran for the Senate ten years later but lost to a Democratic slate headed by John Giblin), instead recruited Assembly Majority Leader William Barnes to run. Barnes attacked Anton for his support of night harness racing and his membership on a citizens committee formed to end a high profile strike on the New York pier, but lost the primary to Anton, 53%-47%.

Unable to unite the Essex GOP in the general election, Anton lost to Democrat Donal Fox. Fox, a former Assistant Essex County Prosecutor who had managed the nearly successful U.S. Senate campaign of Charles Howell in 1954 (Howell, a Democratic Congressman from Mercer County, lost the open Senate seat to Republican Clifford Case by an excruciatingly close 48.7%-48.5% margin), became the first Democrat to win the Essex Senate seat since 1908. He took office on the day Lance described as his first memory of visiting the Senate chamber.

Carmen Orechio served in the State Senate from 1974 to 1992, and was Senate President from 1982 to 1986: He's been a Nutley Commissioner since 1968Carmen Orechio is the only former Senate President who still holds public office, and is one of eight living former Senate Presidents. With the death of 98-year-old Wesley Lance last August, the 81-year-old Orechio is now the second oldest living ex-Senate President; the oldest is Frank McDermott, 83, who ran the Senate in 1969. The other living ex-Senate Presidents: Raymond Bateman, Frank Dodd, John Russo, John Lynch, Donald DiFrancesco, and John Bennett.

PolitickerNJ.com was deeply saddened by the death of Dr. David Rebovich, a prominent, popular and powerful political science professor at Rider University, and the Director of the Rider University Institute for New Jersey Politics, on October 12 . He was among the very best that New Jersey had to offer and it was our considerable honor to run his weekly column for the last six years. We miss him.

Among the favorites of the New Jersey political community who passed away in 2007: Fort Lee Mayor Jack Alter; former State Senator Byron Baer; former Assemblyman Neil Duffy; former Senate President Wesley Lance; former Burlington County Democratic Chairman George Lee; former State Sen. Alexander Menza, a candidate for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination in 1978; former Bergen County Executive William McDowell; former Plainfield Mayor Albert McWilliams; former Rep. Joseph Minish; former Assemblywoman Angela Perun; Central New Jersey radio personality and former NJSEA spokesman for Bernard Spigner; political strategist Greg Stevens, who served as Chief of Staff to Gov. Thomas Kean former Public Advocate Stanley Van Ness; former Assemblyman Harold Pareti; former State Senator Richard Van Wagner; former Wayne Mayor/Superior Court Judge David Waks; and George Warrington, the former Executive Director of New Jersey Transit and the former President of Amtrak.

Former State Senate President Wesley L. Lance was buried Thursday "in the same Hunterdon County soil that so many of his ancestors farmed," in the words of his son, Senate Minority Leonard Lance, who eulogized his father in the Spruce Run Evangelical Lutheran Zion Church.

Lance, who was believed to be the oldest living former State Senator, died on Saturday. He was 99.

(TRENTON) - Assembly Speaker Joseph J. Roberts, Jr., (D-Camden) issued
the following statement on the death of former State Senate President
Wesley L. Lance, the last surviving member of the 1947 convention that
wrote the New Jersey Constitution:

"Wesley Lance was a legislative titan who transcended party affiliation
and parochial interests to make a lasting positive imprint upon this
state and generations of its citizens.

"All of New Jersey owes a debt of gratitude to Wesley Lance and the role

TRENTON – Senate President Richard J. Codey (D-Essex) today released the following statement on the passing of former State Senator President Wesley Lance:

“Wesley Lance was an exceptional man both in his public and private lives. He was driven by a sense of fairness and duty that always transcended party lines and focused on moving all of New Jersey forward.

Sen. Wesley Lance (1908-2007)Former Senate President Wesley Lance, the father of Senate Minority Leader Leonard Lance, died on Saturday. He was 99.

The Hunterdon County Republican was elected to the State Assembly in 1937 and to the Senate in 1941. He resigned from the Senate in 1943 to go on active duty in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and returned to the Senate in 1953. Lance, who did not run for re-election in 1962, may be the last surviving delegate to New Jersey's 1947 Constitutional Convention.