Elizabeth Holtzman had a huge impact on N.J. politics. Here’s how – New Jersey Globe

Elizabeth Holtzman, an 81-year-old former congresswoman from New York contemplating a political comeback 50 years after her first election, is eternally linked to New Jersey politics.

In 1972,  Holtzman, a Harvard Legislation College graduate and former aide to New York Metropolis Mayor John Lindsay, upset Emmanuel Celler, an 84-year-old Democrat who had served in Congress for 50 years, within the Democratic main.

Cellar was a political legend in New York.  He had flipped a Brooklyn-based Home seat in 1922, President Warren Harding’s mid-term election, and chaired the Home Judiciary Committee for eighteen years.

His defeat meant that Peter W. Rodino, Jr., a 12-term congressman from Newark was in line to develop into the brand new Home Judiciary Chairman.

Rodino was common in New Jersey and on Capitol Hill, however an obscure congressman nationally.   He had misplaced races for State Meeting and Congress earlier than flipping an Essex County Home seat in 1948 when Republican Fred Hartley, the creator of the Taft-Hartley Act, determined to not search re-election to an eleventh time period.  He had thought-about runs for statewide workplace, however Democratic Occasion leaders at all times wound up selecting another person.

Three months earlier than Holtzman beat Cellar, Rodino had survived his personal electoral scare.

Congressional redistricting for the 1972 election drew the tenth district with a Black majority for the primary time.

The 64-year-old Rodino confronted main challenges from East Orange Mayor Williams S. Hart, who had develop into the primary Black to win a citywide election there in 1959 and the primary Black mayor in 1969, and from Assemblyman George Richardson.

Hart received the backing of Newark Mayor Kenneth Gibson and activist Amiri Baraka, a poet and the daddy of future Newark Mayor Ras Baraka.

However Rodino had the group line in Essex County and defeated Hart by 13,532 votes, 57%-37%.   In that main, Rodino received 98% and a 3,985-vote margin in Harrison, the one Hudson municipality within the tenth.  He beat Hart by fifteen factors in Essex.

The U.S. Home of Representatives started impeachment proceedings in opposition to President Richard Nixon  in October 1973.  Rodino’s committee was given the authority to research the Watergate scandal,  thrusting the North Ward congressman into the nationwide highlight because the Judiciary panel held hearings that had been broadcast on each main tv community.

Among the many younger Rodino protégés on the committee was Holtzman.

Nixon resigned 9 days after the Judiciary Committee permitted three articles of impeachment.

Rodino received the reward of each events for his dealing with of the impeachment proceedings, and Jimmy Carter short-listed him for the vice presidency in 1976.

Rodino’s Watergate fame prolonged his personal political profession in New Jersey past the place he may need been had Cellar led the Nixon impeachment proceedings.

Regardless of a Black majority district, Rodino drew solely a white challenger within the 1974 main – he received 89% — and was unopposed within the 1976 and 1978 Democratic primaries.

The Payne challenges

However by 1980, a few of Rodino’ nationwide luster was changed by a renewed bid to see the tenth district elect New Jersey’s first Black congressman.

Former Essex County Freeholder Donald M. Payne, Sr., who ran a powerful third place within the 1978 Democratic main for county government, determined to problem Rodino within the main.  So did one other former freeholder, Rev. Russell Fox, and Golden Johnson, a former Newark municipal court docket decide.

Payne mentioned that Rodino had misplaced contact together with his native constituents, significantly the city poor.  Rodino was additionally accused of spending extra time at his shore residence in Lengthy Department than in Newark.

However Rodino was nonetheless on the road and brandished endorsements from distinguished Black leaders, together with Rep. Barbara Jordan (D-Texas), East Orange Mayor Thomas Cooke, and Gibson.

Rodino took 62% within the main, adopted by Payne (23%), Johnson (12%) and Fox (3%).

He coasted in 1982 and 1984 however discovered himself in bother in 1986 when Payne challenged him once more.

Within the Could non-partisan municipal election held a month earlier than the first, Gibson was defeated by Sharpe James, town council president.  Payne, who had received the South Ward metropolis council seat in 1982, endorsed James.

James endorsed Payne over Rodino and Rev. Jesse Jackson got here to Newark to marketing campaign for Payne.

Rodino, on the road once more, scored a 9,920-vote win over Payne, 59%-36%, however with James changing into mayor, it was clear that Rodino’s 40-year stint in Congress was nearing an finish.  He retired in 1988, at age 80.

Payne, on his third strive, received the Democratic main with 73% of the vote in opposition to Ralph Grant, Jr., a Newark metropolis councilman.  He held the seat for 23 years till his demise in 2012; his son, Rep. Donald Payne, Jr. (D-Newark), is now the congressman from the tenth.

The Holtzman Story

After profitable a congressional seat at age 31, Holtzman turned a national-known political determine in a pre-cable information, social media period when it was exceedingly troublesome for Home members to develop into acquire widespread prominence.

Holtzman served three phrases in Congress earlier than giving up her seat to run for the U.S. Senate in 1980.  She had anticipated to tackle one other New York establishment, Jacob Ok. Javits, a 76-year-old Republican who was looking for his fourth time period.

(Her resolution to surrender her Home seat set a path for a younger assemblyman, Charles Schumer, to run for Congress.  He received the Democratic main by simply 750 votes.)

Javits was a liberal Republican and his voting document, his age, and his well being – he was identified with  amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Lou Gehrig’s illness, in 1979 – prompted a GOP main problem from Alphonse D’Amato, a conservative who held native workplace on Lengthy Island.

The early Democratic front-runner was Bess Myerson.  She was well-known as Miss America 1945, and as New York Metropolis Shopper Affairs Commissioner, and had the backing of Gov. Hugh Carey, U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Mayor Ed Koch.   Lindsay, a former GOP congressman who switched events whereas serving as mayor and sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972, additionally ran, together with Queens District Lawyer John Santucci.

Holtzman ran to the left the of the sphere and assembled a coalition of girls and Jewish voters to beat Myerson by a 41%-32% margin, with Lindsay in third place with 16%.

Within the Republican main, D’Amato defeated Javits within the main by 11 proportion factors.

D’Amato defeated Holtzman by 80,991 votes, 44.9%-43.5%, in a race the place Javits turned out to be a spoiler.  Javits refused to drop out and remained on the poll because the Liberal Occasion candidate, and he received 664,544 votes, 11%.

Holtzman was elected Brooklyn District Lawyer in 1981 and after serving two phrases, received a race for New York Metropolis Comptroller in 1989.

She sought a rematch with D’Amato in 1992 however completed final with 12% of the vote in a bitter Democratic main.  Robert Abrams, the state lawyer normal, defeated former Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, the 1984 Democratic vice presidential candidate by 11,254 votes, 37%-36%, with Rev. Al Sharpton, coming in third.  (On the time, Sharpton was probably a New Jersey resident; he lived in a rental condominium in Englewood.)

In 1993, Holtzman misplaced re-election as metropolis comptroller.  Assemblyman Alan Hevesi led her within the Democratic main by a 35%-34% margin – former Rep. Herman Badillo acquired 31% — after which misplaced the runoff by a 2-1 margin.

Holtzman is mulling a run in New York’s tenth district, which was redrawn by a court-appointed mapmaker after the unique map was discovered to be gerrymandered.   The brand new district consists of a big part of Decrease Manhattan and Brooklyn.

A big discipline of candidates consists of: former Mayor Invoice de Blasio; Rep. Mondaire Jones, who was pressured out of his decrease Hudson Valley seat because of redistricting; Daniel Goldman., who was the counsel to the Home Democrats throughout impeachment proceedings in opposition to Donald Trump in 2019 and 2020; and a number of other state legislators and NY city council members.

The Comeback Document

Ought to Holtzman run, and will she in some way forge a victory, she would set an unfathomable document of profitable congressional races 50 years aside.

The longest hole in service within the U.S. Home of Representatives was Philip Francis Thomas, a Maryland Democrat who was first elected in 1838, at age 28, and once more 34 years later in 1874.  In between, he served as Governor of Maryland and as U.S. Secretary of the Treasury underneath President James Buchanan.

The second-longest hole got here in 2012 when Minnesota Democrat Rick Nolan unseated a GOP congressman and returned to Congress 32 years after he walked away.

A former aide to U.S. Senator Walter Mondale, Nolan served within the Minnesota legislature and was elected to Congress on his second strive in 1974.  Additionally 31-years-old, Nolan was a member of the identical freshman class as Holtzman.  He opted out of a re-election marketing campaign in 1980.  Nolan gave up his seat to run for lieutenant governor in 2018 however misplaced the Democratic main.

In 2014, New Jersey nearly noticed a comeback bid by one of many Watergate Infants who was a freshman with Holtzman and Nolan when 75-year-old Andy Maguire practically challenged Rep. Scott Garrett (R-Wantage) in New Jersey’s fifth district.

Maguire had labored on the State Division and on the United Nations throughout Lyndon Johnson’s presidency and ran a powerful however unsuccessful race for Bergen County Freeholder in 1973.  He ousted 11-term Rep. William Widnall (R-Saddle River) within the 1974 Democratic wave.

He held the seat in 1976 and 1978 however misplaced a rematch in opposition to Republican Marge Roukema (R-Ridgewood) in 1980 by 4 proportion factors.

In 1982, Maguire sought the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.  He completed second in a  ten-candidate discipline, dropping to Frank Lautenberg, a businessman and self-funder, 11,788 votes, 26%-23%.  Maguire received 63% in Bergen County.

Maguire, who had been out of Congress for 34 years, in the end determined to not run.  That set in movement a marketing campaign by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Wyckoff) to flip the seat in 2016.

One other Bergen County congressman, Frank Osmers, returned to the Home after a nine-year absence n a 1951 particular election.  Osmers had first election to Congress in 1938, at age 30, however he didn’t search re-election in 1942 in order that he might serve within the U.S. Military throughout World Warfare II.

Osmers’ alternative, Assemblyman Harry Towe (R-Leonia), was anticipated to be a placeholder till after the warfare.   However he appeared to love Congress and ran in 1946, 1948 and 1950, earlier than lastly resigning when Gov. Alfred Driscoll named him deputy state lawyer normal.

Together with Rodino, Holtzman served with nineteen New Jersey Members of Congress:  Jim Florio, William Hughes, James Howard, Frank  Thompson, Jr., Millicent Fenwick, Edwin Forsythe, Andrew Maguire, Robert Roe, Henry Helstoski, Harold Hollenbeck, Joseph Minish, Matthew Rinaldo, Helen Meyner, Jim Courter, Dominick Daniels, Joseph LeFante, Frank Guarini, and Edward Patten.