Brendan Byrne

Tom Byrne might challenge Frank Lautenberg in the Democratic primaryFormer Democratic State Chairman Tom Byrne confirmed today that he’s seriously mulling a primary bid against incumbent U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg.

Byrne, who works as a financial consultant and is the son of former Gov. Brendan Byrne (his full name is actually Brendan Thomas Byrne, Jr.), has already commissioned a poll on his prospects and expects to learn its results by Friday. He’ll make a decision on whether or not to run over the weekend.

“The big factor will be whether people think it’s time for a change,” said Byrne, who headed up the state Democratic party between 1994 and 1997.

In September, PolitickerNJ.com reported that Byrne wouldn’t rule out a primary challenge against Lautenberg.

The last sitting U.S. Attorney to win election as Governor of New Jersey was Garret Wall in 1828. He declined to serve.: U.S. Senate PhotoChris Christie is not the only federal prosecutor with an eye on higher office. But if he decides to run for governor, he'll need to figure out the optimum timing of his formal announcement.

One man who can understand Christie's position is 88-year-old Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. Back in 1962, just one year after John F. Kennedy named him U.S. Attorney for New York's southern district, Morgenthau resigned to make a gubernatorial bid against incumbent Nelson D. Rockefeller at the urging of the New York City Mayor Robert F. Wagner, Jr.

Morgenthau lost, 53%-44%. Partly, he said, because he entered the race too late. As U.S. Attorney, it would have been inappropriate for him to meet with officials or campaign donors to shore up support for a run, he said.

After spending six years working as a private sector lawyer, former Acting Governor and Senate Co-President Donald DiFrancesco wants to get back into public service – perhaps as a board member of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority.

“Would I be interested? Yeah, sure. Will I get it? I’m not sure,” said DiFrancesco. “It’s the other party. He probably has a lot of people who he wants to put on there.”

HOLD ME ACCOUNTABLE: "I don’t think he’s in any real trouble...they’re just pesky things," says former Gov. Brendan Byrne on Jon Corzine's emailsIn his 1974 inaugural speech, Brendan T. Byrne borrowed a line from New Jersey’s most famous former governor: Woodrow Wilson. “If you think too much about being reelected, it is very difficult to be worth reelecting,” it read.

The next year, Byrne took that wisdom to heart, pushing through a wildly unpopular new state income tax. So unpopular, in fact, that it cost Democrats seventeen Assembly seats in the mid-term elections, made Byrne consider not running for reelection, and led to eight other Democrats challenging him in the gubernatorial primary in 1977.

Thirty-two years later, Gov. Jon S. Corzine used that same Woodrow Wilson line in his inaugural address. But for all the criticism Corzine has faced lately, it’s nothing compared to the backlash Byrne saw in the 70’s, said the former Governor.

Frank Lautenberg will be 84 when he seeks re-election to the U.S. Senate next year
While two recent independent polls show that a majority of New Jerseyans think Frank Lautenberg is too old to serve another full term in the U.S. Senate, so far there have been no Democrats willing to openly discuss a primary bid.

Add Tom Byrne to that list.

Byron Baer, 1929-2007

by MAX PIZARRO and MATT FRIEDMAN
PoliticsNJ.com

Byron Baer was a rarity in New Jersey politics: he served time in jail before he took public office, not after.

"I tell people he was a politician who went to jail first instead of the other way around," said his widow, Judge Linda Pollitt Baer.

Pollitt Baer was referring to the 45-day stint that her husband did in a Mississippi jail in 1961, after being arrested as part of the Freedom Riders.

But his civil rights work didn’t end there.

Baer, who died this morning after a long illness, was a pioneering warrior for government transparency during his four decades of service in the Legislature. He passed bills on consumer pricing, toxic waste cleanup and tenant protection. While working on legislation protecting migrant workers, he demonstrated for workers’ rights, getting his arm broken by a south Jersey farmer who tried to hit his head with an iron pipe.