Jerome Krueger, elected to State Assemby in 1961, dies at 98

Former Linden Council President and longtime city attorney represented Union County in the State Assembly from 1962 to 1964

By David Wildstein, August 05 2023 3:39 pm

Jerome Krueger, who served in the New Jersey State Assembly from 1962 to 1964, died on August 1. He was 98.

The decorated World War II U.S. Army veteran was one of a shrinking number of New Jerseyans who ran for the legislature on a slate with Gov. Richard J. Hughes during the presidency of John F. Kennedy.

During his two years as an assemblyman, Krueger sponsored laws that banned guns that used gas or vapor pellets and created criminal penalties for drunk drivers. He backed Hughes’ proposal to fund long-term projects through a $750 million bond issue rather than creating a statewide income or sales tax and sponsored legislation that allowed Union County to construct flood protection projects. Krueger also tightened loopholes in the state’s extortion laws and increased penalties for public officials with conflicts of interest.

Krueger began his political career in 1957 when he won a seat on the Linden City Council at age 32. He spent seven years as the council president.

Union County Democrats broke a 43-year losing streak when they flipped four Union County Assembly seats in 1957. Boosted by Gov. Robert Meyner’s 19,579-vote win in Union County, Democrats defeated Republicans G. Clifford Thomas (R-Elizabeth), a former Assembly Speaker, Plainfield Mayor Carlyle Crane, former Assemblywoman Irene Griffin, and William Vanderbilt, a Summit attorney and World War II veteran and the son of former Chief Justice Arthur Vanderbilt.

Three of the winners – Mildred Barry Hughes (D-Union), James McGowan (D-Cranford), and John Wilson (D-Westfield) – held on to win re-election in 1959 narrowly, but their running mate, George Miller (D-Scotch Plains), lost his seat by 4,286 votes to Republican Nelson Stamler, a former Deputy Attorney.

Union County gained a fifth Assembly seat after the 1960 census, and Democrats picked Krueger and Miller to run on their ticket. Legislators ran countywide in those days.

Stamler became the top vote-getter for the second time, but Krueger edged out Hillside GOP Municipal Chairman Charles Tracy for the fifth Assembly seat by 647 votes to give Democrats four of the five Union County Assembly seats.

Miller ran fifteen votes behind Tracy, with Summit Councilman William Gilson, former Plainfield Councilman John Tozzi, and Vincent Wrkala, a public affairs executive from Mountainside, losing their Assembly bids.

Krueger was Linden’s top vote-getter, carrying Elizabeth, Garwood, Hillside, Rahway, Roselle, and Winfield. Plainfield, then a Republican city, went for the Republicans by over 2,000 votes.

The Democratic legislative victories came even as a Union County favorite son, former U.S. Secretary of Labor James Mitchell, carried the county by 6,293 votes, 51%-47%, against Hughes.

After the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that legislators could not hold a county or municipal public office, Krueger helped pass a bill that permitted the practice of double-dipping. He had remained on the Linden City Council while serving as an assemblyman.

Stamler moved up to the Senate in a 1962 special election to replace Robert Crane (R-Elizabeth), who had died of cancer at age 41. The publisher of the Elizabeth Daily Journal, a rising star in statewide politics, had been touted as a future gubernatorial candidate. Stamler defeated former Linden Mayor Roy Wheeler by a 52%-48% margin; Wheeler had come within 567 votes of defeating Crane in 1959.

In 1963, Krueger sought re-election to a second term as an assemblyman but finished eighth in a field of ten candidates for five seats.

Republicans made substantial gains in Union County during Hughes’ mid-term election year, winning four Assembly seats; Barry Hughes was the only Democrat to hold on – she did so by a slim 1,684 votes countywide over Republican Henry Webster, a Mountainside councilman.

The Republican winners were Elizabeth Mayor Nicholas LaCorte, Union County Freeholder Peter McDonough (R-Plainfield), Westfield labor attorney Frank X. McDermott, and Loree “Rip” Collins, the publisher of the Rahway News Record and the Clark Patriot. LaCorte, McDonough, and McDermott each moved up to the State Senate.

Krueger ran 7,403 votes behind LaCorte and 4,137 votes behind Barry Hughes, who finished fifth. Among his running mates in 1963 was George G. Woody, Jr., a Roselle councilman who later became New Jersey’s first Black county chairman.

He became the Linden City attorney in 1964 after Lewis Winetsky stepped down after thirty years. Krueger held the city attorney post until 1987 and was a close ally of Mayors Alexander Wrigley and John Gregorio.

After the U.S. Supreme Court’s One Man, One Vote decision gave Union County two Senate seats – previously, each county had one senator — Krueger expressed interest in returning to the legislature, either as a Senate or Assembly candidate.

But Union County Democratic Chairman James Kinneally went in a different direction, running Barry Hughes and William Hourihan, the corporate treasurer of Esso (now Exxon) Research and Engineering, for the Senate against Stamler and McDonough. Stamler easily won re-election, and Barry Hughes edged out McDonough by 1,841 votes to become the first woman to serve in the New Jersey State Senate.

In the Assembly race, Democrats gave the Linden seat to Henry Gavan, a former John E. Runnells Hospital board president, instead of Krueger. Rahway Mayor Robert Henderson, Elizabeth attorneys Joseph Higgins and John Weigel, and Woody rounded out their ticket. In addition to Krueger, McGowan and Wilson also sought a return to the Assembly.

While LaCorte and McDermott won re-election, Higgins, Gavan, and Henderson won the other three Assembly seats. (After the 1971 election, Higgins would become one of four Democrats who flipped their votes to make Republican Thomas Kean the Assembly Speaker. Higgins would later go to prison as part of a fraud probe that involved the ringleader of the four Democrats, David Friedland).

Krueger later served on the Union County College Board of Trustees.

Born in Newark, Krueger grew up in Irvington and was drafted into military service at age 18; he was a radio operator in the Army Air Corps. Krueger earned a law degree at Rutgers on the GI Bill. Krueger practiced law until age 90 and lived in Daytona Beach, Florida, at the time of his death.

He is survived by his wife of 75 years, Esther, his three children, seven grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.