Chuck Hardwick, former Assembly Speaker, dies at 83

Chuck Hardwick, the Kentucky-born son of a Wonder Bread maintenance worker who became a significant force in New Jersey politics in the 1980s as the first Republican Assembly Speaker in twelve years and a candidate for governor, died on February 19.  He was 83 and had battled Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) for the last year.

Hardwick’s rise in New Jersey politics was paralleled by a hugely successful 40-year career as a top executive at Pfizer.  As a member of the senior management team, he served as senior vice president of worldwide government and public affairs and as president of the Pfizer Foundation,

During his fourteen years in the New Jersey Legislature, Hardwick was a conservative with clear streaks of compassion and humanitarianism. He advocated for lower taxes and streamlining government waste, advocated for laws that prevented strip searches for people charged with minor offenses, and sponsored a law that would provide adoptees with access to their birth parents’ medical history.   His friendship with Arnold Wexler led him to become an activist in support of programs to benefit people with gambling addictions.

He became Assembly Minority Leader in late 1984, after Dean Gallo (R-Parsippany) was elected to Congress, and became Speaker after Republicans, boosted by Gov. Tom Kean’s 70% landslide re-election, picked up fourteen Assembly seats, including four in Hudson County.

With Kean term-limited in 1989, Hardwick sought the Republican nomination for governor. He finished third in a field of eight candidates.  Rep. Jim Courter (R-Allamuchy) led Attorney General Cary Edwards, 29%-22%; Hardwick received 21%, finishing 2,921 votes behind Edwards.

Hardwick began his political career in 1974 as a candidate for councilman in Westfield’s fourth ward.  He came within 54 votes of ousting the incumbent, Democrat Lawrence Weiss, despite the Watergate landslide that year.

He ran for Union County Freeholder in 1976 in a race where four seats were up for grabs.

Union County Democrats backed Thomas Long and Harold Seymour for re-election, but initially denied party support to Everett Lattimore – a move they later overturned.  They also backed Joseph Garrrubo, a former assemblyman appointed to fill a vacancy and seeking an unexpired term.   Hardwick’s running mates were Springfield Township Committeeman Bill Ruocco and Roselle Park Councilman Robert Morgan; against Garrbubo, the GOP ran Ed Weber, an Operating Engineers Local 825 business representative from Union Township.

Union County was in ticket-splitting mode in those days, giving President Gerald Ford a 12,000-vote plurality but also giving U.S. Senator Harrison Wiliams, a Plainfield native, a 53,000-vote win in the Senate race; Republican Rep. Matthew Rinaldo (R-Union) represented most of Union County and carried it by nearly 88,000 votes.

Long was the top vote-getter in the freeholder race, outpolling Hardwick by roughly 8,000 votes; Seymour beat Hardwick by around 5,000.  Weber defeated Garrbubo by approximately 500 votes after hammering him over his vote to establish a state income tax.

Undeterred, Hardwick became a candidate for the Assembly in 1977 after Frank X. McDermott (R-Westfield) chose to give up his lower house seat and run for the State Senate.  He told Republicans that he’d probably just run for the Senate next if they didn’t pick him.

Running with Assemblyman C. Louis Bassano (R-Union), Hardwick captured the second seat by more than 3,200 votes against Hillside Mayor Vincent Baldassano and former Cranford Mayor Daniel Mason.  McDermott, who had been Senate President before losing to Democrat Alexander Menza (D-Hillside) in the 1973 Watergate landslide, was unsuccessful in his Senate bid; Democrat Anthony Russo (D-Union) defeated him by 990 votes, 51%-49%.

A tireless worker, Hardwick was re-elected by wide margins six times.

Following Gallo’s move to Congress – he had unseated 11-term Rep. Joseph Minish (D-West Orange) – Hardwick defeated Robert Littell (R-Franklin) for the minority leader post.  Littell joined the race after his running mate, Chuck Haytaian (R-Hackettstown), pulled out.  Hardwick was the sole survivor of an Assembly GOP leadership purge one year earlier.

Hardwick had led a statewide campaign to take control of the Assembly in 1985 – personally playing a role in the recruitment of candidates – but the night before the vote to pick a Speaker, Assemblyman Walter Kavanaugh (R-Somerville) made a play for the post; Hardwick had the votes, and Kavanaugh was out of the race within a few hours.  Haytaian became the Majority Leader and a strong Hardwick ally.

In the governor’s race, Hardwick carried Union County by a 48%-21% margin over Courter and finished second in Gloucester, Hudson, Hunterdon, Ocean, Salem, Somerset, Sussex, and Warren counties.

After the 1989 primary, Assemblyman Peter Genova (R-Union) changed his mind about seeking re-election, and Hardwick decided to return to the Assembly.  He was the top vote-getter in a hugely competitive district; Democrat Neil Cohen flipped the second seat, defeating former Westfield Mayor Ronald Frigerio by 3,587 votes.

Charles Leighton Hardwick was born November 8, 1941, in Somerset, Kentucky.  His mother died when he was five, and his father had suffered a workplace-related injury; as a teenager, Hardwick helped support his family. He married his high school sweetheart, Pat, when he was 17, before graduation day, and their daughter, Ginger, was born soon after that.  He had two children by the time he was 20.

He attended Florida State University on a Wonder Bread scholarship, graduated in three years, and received his MBA before joining Pfizer as a pharmaceutical sales representative.

A former president of the National Republican Legislators Association, Harwick moved to New York City and later to Florida.  He and his wife, Sheilagh Mylott, had fostered a four-day-old child, Austin, and eventually adopted him; he is now 16.  He is survived by his wife, three children, and three grandchildren.

Hardwick’s death leaves just three living former Republican Assembly Speakers: Barry Parker (1971), Kean (1972-74), and and Jack Collins (1996-2002).