Over the last 100 years, just five congressmen have represented New Jersey’s 10th district; the district was represented for 40 years by Peter W. Rodino, for over 23 years by Donald M. Payne, and since 2012 by Donald M. Payne, Jr.
Here’s a primer on the last five congressmen from NJ-10.
Frederick R. Lehlbach (R-Newark), 11 Terms
Frederick Lehlbach (1876-1937) was first elected to the 10th district House seat in 1914 when he ousted two-term incumbent Edward W. Townsend (D-Montclair). A former Newark school board member, assemblyman, and assistant Essex County prosecutor, Lehlbach unseated Townsend by four percentage points. He spent 22 years in Congress, serving as chairman of the Civil Service Committee. Lehlbach’s uncle, Herman, Lehlbach, was a congressman from Newark from 1885 to 1991.
New Jersey picked up two House seats after the 1930 U.S. Census, going from twelve to fourteen seats; with Newark’s population growing (from nearly 250,000 from the turn of the century to almost 450,000 three decades later), redistricting moved Lehlbach into the newly created 12th district, which also included part of Newark.
He held the seat until 1936 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s coattails helped Democrat Frank W. Towey, Jr., a lawyer and World War I veteran, beat him by 325 votes, 49.9% to 49.6%. Towey lost his seat in 1938 to Republican Robert W. Kean (R-Livingston), the grandfather of Rep. Thomas Kean, Jr. (R-Westfield).
Fred A. Hartley, Jr. (R-Kearny), 10 Terms
Fred Hartley (1902-1969) was immortalized as the co-sponsor of the Taft-Hartley Act that lessened the power of labor unions, was elected to the 8th district congressional seat in 1928 and then moved to the 10th in 1932 after redistricting created an Essex County district that included his hometown of Kearny and others in Hudson County. He had been elected Library Commissioner in Kearny in 1923, at age 21, and was 26 years old when he ousted freshman Rep. Paul J. Moore (D-Newark), the Essex County Democratic Chairman, by 321 votes (50.1% to 49.9%) in 1928; Hartley had captured the Republican nomination by 496 votes, 36.3% to 34.7%, against former Belleville Mayor John McGraw.
Hartley faced a series of tough re-election campaigns: he prevailed in a 1930 rematch with Moore by 843 votes and by 12 points against William (Pat) Harrison, a World War I aviator from Newark who served as Gov. A. Harry Moore’s pilot. Harrison won acclaim that summer when he saved the crew of a burning fishing boat off the coast of Sea Girt. Harrison had been flying from Sea Girt, where the governor’s beach house was located, to Newark, when he saw the ship on fire and notified the Coast Guard.
He won 53% against Newark attorney William Herda Smith in 1934. Against Bloomfield Postmaster Lindsay Rudd in 1936, Harley held on by just 665 votes, but in a rematch two years later, was re-elected by sixteen points. He won 57% against Newark attorney William Holmwood in 1940, 53% against Newark Buildings Superintendent Frederic Bigelow in 1942, and 53% against Luke Kiernan, Jr., the deputy director of the Newark Department of Public Safety, in 1944.
In 1946, Hartley’s Democratic opponent was a young attorney and decorated World War II veteran, Peter W. Rodino, Jr. Rodino had run unsuccessfully for Assembly in 1940, but in his run for Congress, with the support of the AF. Of L., the CIO, and Newark-based daily newspapers, held Hartley to a 52%-46% margin. After two decades in Congress, Hartley sold his home in Kearny, moved to Hunterdon County, and retired from Congress in 1948. (His late son, Al Hartley, was a cartoonist for Archie Comics.)
Peter W. Rodino, Jr. (D-Newark), 20 Terms
Peter Rodino (1909-2005) is one of the most consequential House members in New Jersey history, chairing the House Judiciary Committee during impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon. After running a close race against Fred Hartley in 1946, Rodino never stopped running, and in 1948 found himself running for an open seat when Hartley announced his retirement. Essex County Democratic Chairman William Kelly cleared the field for Rodino.
To succeed Hartley, Republicans nominated former Assemblyman Anthony Giuliano (R-Newark), a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and World War I veteran who was a member of the Clean Government GOP organization headed by future Chief Justice Arthur Vanderbilt. He defeated Belleville Mayor James Tully, a decorated World War II Marine veteran who fought in Iowa Jima, by a 54%-39% margin. A third candidate, Reginald Parnell, was also in the race.
Rodino won his first general election with 50.7% of the vote, defeating Giuliano by 5,800 votes and five percentage points in a four-candidate race. President Harry Truman campaigned for Rodino in Newark in October 1948.
An indefatigable campaigner, Rodino’s first win was the closest general election of his congressional career. He won re-election nineteen times: 61% against Essex County Freeholder William Rawson in 1950; 57% against Newark Housing Authority Chairman (and future state senator) Alexander Matturri in 1952; 63% against Kearny Councilman William McGlynn in 1954 (both his sons were in politics: Edward McGlynn was chief of staff to Gov. Thomas Kean and Richard McGlynn served on the Board of Public Utilities and as a Superior Court Judge before running for governor in 1981); 56% against George Addonizio, a Belleville attorney whose distant cousin, Democrat Hugh Addonizio (D-Newark), was the congressman from the next-door 11th district; 64% in a 1958 rematch with Addonizio; 65% against former UNICO National President Alphonse Miele, an insurance executive from Glen Ridge, in 1960; 73% against Charles Baretski, a Newark librarian, in 1962; and 74% against former Bloomfield Bloomfield Raymond Schroeder in 1964.
In 1966, Rodino faced his first Black general election opponent: Earl Harris, an Essex County freeholder who gave up his seat that year to run for the Newark South Ward city council seat against incumbent Lee Bernstein. Harris lost a runoff to Bernstein, and with the primary election in September that year, instead became a candidate for Congress. Rodino defeated Harris by 35,191 (64%-33%). Harris was elected to an at-large seat on the Newark City Council on a ticket with mayoral candidate Kenneth Gibson in 1970 and served from 1970 to 1982, and from 1986 to 1988; he spent twelve years as council president and was elected Essex County Surrogate as a Republican in 1986.
Rodino won 64% against Celestino Clemente, a Montclair physician, in 1968; and 70% against Montclair attorney Griffin Jones in 1970.
After the 1970 U.S. Census results were certified, Richardson sought to create a Black majority House district that put Newark and East Orange in the same district. Until 1992, congressional maps were drawn by the legislature.
While the process was mostly controlled by Republicans – the GOP had a governor, Senate President, and Assembly Speaker – the narrow working majority in the Assembly made congressional redistricting politically competitive. Republicans had sought to merge two Hudson districts into one and create a new GOP seat in western New Jersey.
The 10th district was drawn with a majority of its residents being Black, and Rodino drew three Black primary opponents: East Orange Mayor William S. Hart, Assemblyman George Richardson (D-Newark), and Wilbur Kornegay.
Rodino won 57% of the vote, defeating Hart (37%) by 13,532 votes. Richardson finished third with 3,086 votes (5%). Kornegay received 1% of the vote.
In that primary, Rodino won 98% and a 3,985-vote margin in Harrison, the only Hudson municipality in the 10th. He beat Hart by fifteen points in Essex.
Also, in 1972, 84-year-old Emmanuel Celler was upset in the Democratic primary by Elizabeth Holtzman. That set up Rodino to become the House Judiciary Committee chairman during the Watergate scandal and President Richard Nixon’s impeachment. As a result of his national prominence, Rodino didn’t face real primary challenges until 1980.
In the 1972 general election, Rodino won 80% against Kenneth Miller, a motor vehicle agent from East Orange; 81% against Newark South Ward Republican Chairman John Taliaferro in 1974; 83% against Tony Grandison, who was fired from his job as a supervisor of the Newark Housing Authority due to a Hatch Act violation; and 85% against John Pelt, a car salesman from Newark, in 1978.
Rodino faced his first serious post-Watergate primary challenge in 1980 when former Essex County Freeholder Donald M. Payne, Sr. challenged him in the Democratic primary, along with former Newark Municipal Court Judge Golden Johnson and Russell Fox, an East Orange minister and former freeholder. He defeated Payne by 17,118 votes, 62%-23%, with 12% for Johnson and 3% for Fox.
He defeated Alan Bowser of East Orange with 83% of the vote in 1982 (Bowser later moved to Maryland and lost Democratic primaries for Montgomery County Clerk of the Circuit Court in 2018 and 2022 by margins of more than 2-1).
Rev. Arthur S. Jones, the past of St. Marks AME Church in East Orange and the former New Jersey Council of Churches president, challenged Rodino in the 1984 Democratic primary; Rodino won by a 75%-19% margin against Jones and another Democrat, Thelma Tyree.
In 1986, Payne mounted a second challenge to Rodino and lost, 59.5% to 36%; Pearl Barber Hart, a following of Lyndon LaRouche, received 2.3%, and Jones, making a second congressional run, received 2.2%.
Rodino beat East Orange businessman Everett Jennings in the 1980 general election with 85% of the vote. Rodino defeated Timothy Lee, a Kean administration official from East Orange, with 83% in 1982 and Irvington Republican Municipal Chairman Howard Berkeley with 84% in 1984. In his last general election in 1986, Republicans didn’t want to run anyone – the Essex GOP was playing to win a county executive race so they convinced their nominee, Alvin Terry, to drop out and then didn’t replace him so as not to poke the bear. Rodino defeated Socialist Workers candidate Chris Brandon with 96% of the vote.
In 1988, at age 79 and after 40 years in Congress, Rodino decided to retire. He later worked as a law professor at Seton Hall Law School and died in 2005 at age 95.
Donald M. Payne (D-Newark), 12 Terms
Donald Payne (1934-2012) was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives on his third try in 1988 after serving as an Essex County freeholder and Newark city councilman.
Payne had become prominent as the first Black president of the National Council of YMCAs in 1970. That year, he played a key role in helping Kenneth Gibson win his bid to become the first black mayor of Newark. He became the Newark South Ward Democratic chairman.
Essex County Democrats picked Payne to run for freeholder in 1972 when Democrats, with a 5-4 majority. Three Republican seats were up; incumbent Stewart Hausman did not seek re-election, and two incumbents allied with controversial GOP leader Joseph Intile, Raymond Stabile, and Joseph Napolitano, were denied party support for re-election.
Democrats swept all three seats: Payne finished second in a six-candidate field for three freeholder seats with 159,673 votes; Samuel Angelo was the top vote-getter with 165,732, and South Orange Democratic Municipal Chairman Harry McEnroe received 154,820 votes. They defeated Bloomfield Councilman John Crecco (142,004), former Newark Councilman Mario Farco (141,272), and Glen Ridge Taxpayers Association President Helene Kaplan (131,026).
Payne was easily re-elected in 1975.
When Essex County voters approved a charter change referendum, Payne ran in the 1978 race to become the first Essex County Executive. Payne carried Newark and East Orange but finished third in the Democratic primary behind Assemblyman Peter Shapiro (D-South Orange) and Sheriff John Cryan, and ahead of Angelo.
With the endorsement of Newark Mayor Kenneth Gibson, Payne won 47.7% of the vote in Newark and 46.3% in East Orange. Of the total votes he received countywide, 81% came from Newark and East Orange. But Payne got crushed in places like Livingston, where he received 56 votes, and Millburn, where 45 Democrats voted for him.
Shapiro defeated Cryan by just 2,497 votes in the Democratic primary, a 35%-32% victory out of 82,544 votes cast. Payne won a respectable 26% of the vote.
In 1980, Payne challenged Rodino in the Democratic primary for Congress in the 10th district. Rodino defeated Payne by 17,118 votes, 62%-23%. Former Newark Municipal Court Judge Golden Johnson won 12% and former Essex County Freeholder Russell Fox won 3%.
He made a political comeback in 1982 as a candidate for the South Ward seat on the Newark City Council in a race that was not easy.
The three-term incumbent, Sharpe James, decided to instead seek an at-large seat, a move that set up his 1986 mayoral run.
In the May non-partisan municipal election, Payne finished first with 3,416 votes (33%) in a twelve-candidate race, followed by Harold Edwards, a mountebank aide to James with 1,863 (18%), and Donald Bradley (a future councilman) with 1,306 (13%).
In the runoff, Payne defeated Edwards, 5,482-4986, 52%-48%.
Payne launched a second primary challenge against Rodino in 1986, while simultaneously seeking re-election to his Newark city council seat; he won 60% in that contest.
His fortunes appeared to rise in the May election when he supported James’ successful bid to oust four-term mayor Kenneth Gibson. As the mayor-elect, James endorsed Payne for Congress, saying it was time for a Black-majority district to have a Black congressman.
“Black people are in a different mood,” James said.
One week before the Democratic primary, Rev. Jesse Jackson came to Newark for a full day of campaign events in support of Payne.
Rodino beat Payne by 9,920 votes, 59.5% to 36% in a field of four candidates.
Payne ciattarellied his concession speech, announcing that he would challenge Rodino again in 1988.
But in March 1988, Rodino announced his retirement.
Payne received the endorsement of Essex County Democratic Chairman Raymond Durkin and with that, the organization line. Durkin had promised Payne he would back him in 1988 regardless of Rodino’s decision.
He won the Democratic primary with 73% of the vote against Newark City Councilman Ralph Grant. A third candidate, former Administrative Law Judge Robert Pickett, had previously dropped out of the race.
In the general election, Payne defeated Republican Michael Webb by 70,833 votes in a six-candidate race, 77%-13%. Anthony Imperiale, a racist former state senator from Newark, ran as an independent and won 5% of the vote.
Payne was extraordinarily popular in Washington and at home, and never faced a tough race. In 1988, he received 81% against Irvington’s Berkeley, who had taken on Rodino in 1984, and took 81% against Berkeley, a retired postal worker, in 1990.
Redistricting for the 1992 election added part of Jersey City and Elizabeth to the 10th district, and Payne faced primary challenges from Jersey City Councilwoman Willie Flood and two Democrats from Elizabeth, Brian Connors and Stanley Moskal.
Payne won 74% of the vote against Flood (10%), Connors (8%) and Moskal (8%). He won 88% in Essex, edged out Flood by 102 votes in Hudson (48%-45%), and got 56% in Union County.
In the general election, he beat Linden GOP Municipal Chairman Alfred Palermo by a 78%-20% margin. He won 76% against Jim Ford in 1994. In 1996, he won 82% against Connors and Cecil Banks in the Democratic primary, and 84% against a Republican named Vanessa Williams. He took 92% of the vote in the 1998 Democratic primary and 83% against Republican William Stanley Wnuck (11%), Conservative Richard Pezzullo (3%) and Socialist Maurice Williams (2%). Payne won: 87% against Republican Dirk Weber in 2000, 84% against two Democratic primary challengers and 84% against Republican Andrew Wirtz in 2002; and 97% against two independents in 2004. He had no opponent in 2006, won 99% against Socialist Michael Traber in 2008, and 85% in his last campaign in 2010 against Republican Michael Alonso.
Payne chaired the Congressional Black Caucus and the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa.
He died in office on March 6, 2012, after a battle with colon cancer. He was 77.
Donald M. Payne, Jr. (D-Newark), 6 Terms
Donald Payne (1958-2024) was elected to fill his father’s seat in 2012 after serving, like his father, as an Essex County freeholder and Newark city councilman.
Payne suffered a heart attack on April 6 and had been unconscious and on a ventilator since then at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center. He battled a series of health issues in recent years, including diabetes, high blood pressure, and kidney issues that require regular dialysis.
Payne began his own electoral career the same way his father had in 1972: running in a countywide election as a candidate for Essex County Freeholder. Democrats put Payne on the organization line in 2005 to replace Albertus Jenkins, who opted not to seek re-election. Running with three incumbents, Payne was the top vote-getter with about 105,000 votes against a ticket headed by Republican Candace Straight.
He was re-elected in 2008 and 2011, the top vote-getter in primary and general elections in every county race he ran in.
In 2010, Payne also sought an at-large seat on the Newark City Council. He was the top vote-getter with 20,358 votes, followed by Mildred Crump (18,918), Luis Quintana (17,546), and Carlos Gonzalez (15,547). The fifth-place finisher was John Sharpe James (12,589), the son of the former mayor, followed by Carol Graves (7,141), the former Essex County Register of Deeds and Mortgages and onetime Newark Teacher’s Union president.
Payne became the city council president when the council reorganized in July 2010.
Running for Congress in 2012, Payne had the organization line as the endorsed candidate for the Essex County Democrats.
He faced a crowded field of six candidates that included: Newark West Ward City Councilman Ronald C. Rice, the son of a popular state senator; State Sen. Nia Gill (D-Montclair); Irvington Mayor Wayne Smith; and newcomers Iraq War veteran Dennis Flynn and Cathy Wright, who worked in the billing office at the Star-Ledger.
Gill had the county line in Hudson after winning the endorsement of the Democratic county chairman, Bayonne Mayor Mark Smith. But U.S. Senator Bob Menendez and then-Jersey City Councilman Steven Fulop endorsed Payne.
Three Newark city council members – Ras Baraka, Mildred Crump, and Darrin Sharif – endorsed Rice.
Union County Democrats put Payne, Rice, Gill, and Smith on the organization line.
Payne won the Democratic primary with 59.6%, defeating Rice (19.5%) by 24,627 votes. Gill finished third with 16.6%, running 1,732 votes behind Rice. Smith received just 2.2%, followed by Flynn (1.3%) and Wright, who had less than one percent of the vote.
Payne won Essex County with 61% of the vote, followed by Rice (23%), Gill (13%), and Smith 2%. Gill carried the Hudson County portion of the district by a 49%-39% margin over Payne; Union County gave Payne 69.5%.
Payne ran in two different elections in two different districts that day, seeking his father’s unexpired term as well as a full two-year term. Congressional redistricting that year changed the boundaries slightly.
Gill did not compete in the special primary, and Payne defeated Rice by 22,423 votes, 70.7% to 24.6%, with Smith finishing third with 4.8%.
New Jersey’s 10th district is one of the most Democratic in the nation, and Payne won his first term in Congress with 87.6% against Republican Brian Kelemen. The GOP didn’t run anyone in the special election, and Payne defeated independent Joanne Miller with 97.4% of the vote.
Payne had no trouble winning elections. He won Democratic primaries with 91% in 2014, 92% in 2018, 88% in 2020 and 83% in 2022. He was re-elected in general elections with 85% in 2014, 86% in 2016, 87% in 2018, 83% in 2020, and 78% in 2022.