June 13, 2007 - 8:20am
News

Twenty new Senators

New Jersey is assured of at least twelve new State Senators when the Legislature meets in January 2007.  But with just a handful of competitive general election contests, it seems almost impossible for the next freshman class to be larger than the Senate produced after the 1977 general election -- when twenty of the forty Senators were different than those elected in 1973.

Six Senators did not seek re-election: Democrats John Lynch and Alexander Menza and Republicans Alfred Beadleston and Frank Davenport retired; Raymond Garramone sought the Democratic gubernatorial nomination (in a primary against Brendan Byrne); and Anne Martindell left to become the United States Ambassador to New Zealand.

Five Democratic Senators were defeated in primary elections: Alene Ammond, aka "The Terror of Trenton," who had been removed from the majority caucus for behavioral issues; James Dugan (the incumbent Democratic State Chairman) and Joseph Tummulty from Hudson County; Edward Hughes, and John Fay.  

Five incumbents, four of them Democrats, lost their bids for re-election: Joseph McGahn and Thomas Dunn, who ran as Indepedents after losing party support; Herbert Buehler and Stephen Wiley; and Independent Anthony Imperiale.  

John Horn, a Senator from Camden County, had resigned in 1976 to become state Commissioner of Labor.  He was replaced by Angelo Errichetti.

Wally Edge can be reached via email at politicsnj@aol.com.