Bill Schluter

Anne Martindell (1914-2008) served in the New Jersey State Senate from 1974 to 1977.Former State Sen. Anne Clark Martindell, a Democrat who won an upset victory in a solidly Republican legislative district in 1973 and went on to become the United States Ambassador to New Zealand, passed away on Wednesday.  She was 93.

Martindell became involved in politics in 1968 when her brother, Blair Clark, was the campaign manager for Eugene McCarthy’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.  She ran for State Senator in a Hunterdon County-based district that included Princeton, Pennington and the Hopewells, and narrowly defeated incumbent Bill Schluter in 1973, when Watergate caused Republicans to lose ten State Senate seats. 

She left the Senate in 1977 when President Jimmy Carter appointed her to serve as an Ambassador.  Her Senate seat was won by Republican Walter Foran.

If New Jersey does not elect a Congresswoman in the 2008 election, it will be the longest period of an all-male delegation since women won the right to vote in 1920.

The first of just five women to represent New Jersey in the U.S. House of Representatives was elected in 1924 -- four years after the ratification of the nineteenth amendment.  The first was Mary Norton, a political ally of Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague, who was also the first woman to serve on the Hudson County Board of Freeholders when she won in 1922. 

Two Democratic Assemblymen have filed as Independent candidates for State Senate this fall, yet the remain members of the Assembly Democratic Caucus and continue to hold committee chairmanships.

William Payne filed petitions this month as a Senate candidate in the 29th district against Teresa Ruiz, the Democratic nominee. He remains a member of the leadership, as Deputy Majority Conference Leader, and is the Chairman of the Assembly Regulatory Oversight Committee and Vice Chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee.

When L. Harvey Smith returns to Trenton in January, he will join a rather obscure and exclusive club: former State Senators who become Assemblymen. Smith served in the Senate for three months in 2003 and 2004, between Joseph Charles' resignation to become a Superior Court Judge and Glenn Cunningham taking office in January 2004.