Thomas Long, former assemblyman, freeholder, dies at 94 – New Jersey Globe

Thomas W. Long, an affable and respected former assemblyman, five-term Union County freeholder, and Linden superintendent of schools who never lost an election, died on May 20.  He was 94.

He was the father of state Community Affairs Deputy Commissioner Robert Long, a fixture in New Jersey politics who served under three Democratic governors.

As an assemblyman, Long sponsored a law that extended a tax credit to renters who faced increases after the landlords who passed on price increases for utilities to their tenants, and pushed to change the name of the Rahway State Prison, saying it stigmatized the town.  After opting not to seek re-election, he advocated for a constitutional amendment to increase the terms of State Assembly members to four years.

Long spent 41 years as an educator in Linden.

Senate President Nicholas Scutari said he learned Long’s name while growing up in Linden.

“As a kid, you saw his name on everything and you knew he was important,” Scutari said.

Long was a junior high school principal in 1970 when he launched his electoral career as the Democratic candidate for Union County freeholder.  At the time, Republicans had a 9-0 majority.

Four seats were up that year: Long, Plainfield Councilman Everett Lattimore, and Harold Seymour, Jr., the Cranford tax collector, ran for three-year terms, and Elizabeth Tax Assessor John Mottley was seeking a two-year unexpired term.  They faced three Republican incumbents: Jerome Epstein, Arthur Manner, and Charles Tracey – and appointed Freeholder Henery Daaleman.

Buoyed by the coattails of Harrison Williams, Jr., a Westfield Democrat who carried Union County by more than 30,000 votes and nearly seventeen percentage points to win a third term in the U.S. Senate, Democrats swept all four freeholder seats.   Long won by about 14,000 votes after scoring a huge win in Linden; Lattimore became Union County’s first Black freeholder.

As a first-term freeholder, Long helped win approval of bonds to repair and expand county roads, an expansion of the Union County Technical Institute. And the construction of a minimum-security county jail.

Long and his running mates coasted to re-election in 1973 after the Watergate scandal led to a Democratic wave across New Jersey that year.  Long, Lattimore, and Seymour beat Republicans Raymond Bonnell, Robert W. Lee, and Jack McVey, the mayor of Cranford, by over 25,000 votes.

After Democrats took control of the Board of Freeholders in 1974 with a 6-3 majority – the second Watergate-fueled Democratic wave – Long became the freeholder chairman.

On Long’s watch, Union County voters adopted a county manager form of government in 1974; as freeholder director, Long shepherded the selection process that resulted in the appointment of George Albanese.  He also saw Union County earn a AAA bond rating.

In 1976, Union County Democrats backed Long and Seymour for re-election, but initially denied party support to Lattimore – a move they later overturned.  They also backed Joseph Garrrubo, a former assemblyman who had been appointed to fill a vacancy and was seeking an unexpired term.   They faced Chuck Hardwick, who would later become Assembly Speaker, Springfield Township Committeeman Bill Ruocco, and Roselle Park Councilman Robert Morgan; against Garrbubo, the GOP ran Ed Weber, a business representative for Operating Engineers Local 825.

Union County was in ticket-splitting mode in those days, giving Gerald Ford a 12,000-vote plurality, but also giving Wiliams a 53,000-vote win the Senate race; Republican Rep. Matthew Rinaldo (R-Union) represented most of Union County and carried it by nearly 88,000 votes.
In the freeholder race, Long was the top vote-getter, outpolling Hardwick by roughly 8,000 votes; Seymour beat Hardwick by around 5,000.  Weber defeated Garrbubo by roughly 500 votes after hammering him over his vote in favor of establishing a state income tax.

Long and his running mates all sought a fourth term in 1979; Republicans picked Elizabeth GOP Municipal Chair Blanche Banasiak, Summit Mayor Frank Lehr, and former Westfield Councilman Jack Meeker to run against them.  Republicans complained that spending by the Democratic majority had become too high.

That year, Democrats battled fatigue over President Jimmy Carter and Gov. Brendan Byrne, who was facing his second mid-term elections.  The turnout in the off-off-year election in Union County was about 50%.

Banasiak and Meeker ousted Lattimore and Seymour, but Long held on to defeat Lehr by a narrow 900-vote margin.  Just 3,000 votes separated Banasiak and Seymour, who finished sixth.

Long returned to his fourth term with Democrats sitting on a narrower 5-4 majority.

In 1982, Long sought a fifth term as a freeholder; after Republican Rose Marie Sinnott resigned to become Union County Surrogate, four seats – three Republicans and Long – were up.

Long teamed up with Walter Boright, a former freeholder and Scotch Plains mayor, and two Democrats who would become legendary political figures in Union County: Hillside Township Clerk Charlotte DeFilippo and Plainfield’s Gerald Green.

Long was again the top vote-getter in a strong Democratic year that saw the freeholder board shift from a 5-4 Republican majority to Democrats holding eight seats; Long won by about 14,000 votes.

DeFilippo and Boright defeated Banasiak and two Republicans who had been appointed to the board: Clark Mayor Bernard Yarusavage and former Berkeley Heights Mayor Bob Miller.   Green beat Hillside Township Committeeman John Kulish.   The Democratic margins were so strong that Ann Conti ousted Sinnott in the surrogate race.

In 1983, John Gregorio was convicted of tax evasion after concealing his interest in two go-go bars; which forced him to forfeit his posts as a state senator and mayor of Linden.  Assemblyman Raymond Lesniak (D-Elizabeth) won a June 1983 special election to take Gregorio’s Senate seat.

Long easily won Democratic organization support to run for Lesniak’s Assembly seat.  He narrowly outpolled seven-term Assemblyman Thomas Deverin (D-Carteret) in the Democratic primary; the two defeated three other Democrats by about 9,000 votes.

In a special election that August, Long defeated independent Henry Kielbasa, a perennial candidate who had lost the Democratic primary, with 82% of the vote.

Long won a full two-year term in November by over 13,000 votes against Republicans Andrew Fydryszewski and Mark Pena.  He ran just 57 votes behind Deverin.  He was sworn in on September 15.

Long spent 3 ½ months as a dual officeholder, but resigned from the freeholder board in January 1984.

He served on the Assembly Municipal Government Committee and the State Government Committee.

In early 1985, Long announced that he would not seek re-election to a second term in the Assembly and instead would become Linden’s Superintendent of Schools.  His full-time focus on the education post was a condition of his job offer by the Linden school board.

He retired in 1992 after more than four decades as a teacher and school administrator.

In addition to his son, Long is survived by his wife of 69 years, Caroline, his grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.