The life and times of Harry P. Pappas

Harry P. Pappas never became a household name, but for those who knew him, detestation was universal.

During the 1970s, Pappas was a bright, rising star in Democratic politics.  He was briefly the Union County Democratic Chairman – he bragged of a personal relationship with President Jimmy Carter that doesn’t check out — and the Union County Purchasing Agent from 1975 to 1977.  He’s become the poster child for those whose tremendous ambition for political power was never realized.

He challenged incumbent Ronald Erdos in a race for third vice chairman of the Union County Democrats in 1976 and won.  He viewed that job sort of the way John O. Bennett III saw his 84 hours as acting governor of New Jersey in 2002.

In 1977, Pappas became the Democratic nominee for State Senate in a swing district that included Plainfield and Rahway, but he lost to freshman Republican Peter McDonough by 13 percentage points.

After George Woody decided not to seek re-election as Union County Democratic Chairman, Pappas ran and won after two other potential candidates, former Freeholder John Mollozzi and Victoria Kilkenny, a former party executive director, opted not to run.

A Democratic insider said that ” Pappas is the kind of guy who could switch to the Socialist Workers Party and convince them to name him as their Union County Chairman.  Within three months, he would be involved in a scheme to kick out the other two members of the organization.”

After one year, Democrats sought to oust Pappas, with one party leader calling him an “embarrassment.”  The race wound up in court before election night after a rival found out that Pappas was trying to pack the school where the vote was scheduled so that the opposing county committee members couldn’t get in the building. A judge stopped him.

The election was a rout: Assistant County Counsel William Maccarelli beat him 341 to 174, a 66%-34% margin.

His truncated political career was boosted by a legitimately popular and influential wife who remains a proven vote-getter decades later.  It was an alliance tailor-made for a man who relished the inside of smoke-filled rooms and the power that comes with political celebrity.  After their marriage ended in the early 1980s, Democrats had no trouble standing with Pappas’ ex-wife.

Still, Pappas wouldn’t go away and become involved in an inside political battle between the Democratic Freeholder majority and then-County Manager Joseph Martin.  By 1989, he had returned as acting director of the Union County Department of Central Services; within a few months, he was terminated for lacking proper job qualifications.  Pappas filed a lawsuit against six Democratic Freeholders.  Martin eventually restored Pappas to his post permanently and proposed a salary increase to $64,000.

But Pappas was unsuccessful in his lawsuit, and the Democratic freeholders continued their effort to oust him. The new County Manager, Ann Baran, again fired Pappas, saying he was not qualified to hold the post.  Pappas filed another lawsuit against the Freeholders, which was ultimately dismissed.

In 1991, Pappas announced that he was switching to the Republican Party.  The late Philip Keegan,  who was then serving as Democratic State Chairman, told The Star-Ledger: “I wish the Republicans the best of luck with Harry. They deserve him.” And longtime Democratic National Committeewoman June Fischer said of Pappas’ party switch: “It’s our gain and their loss.”

Pappas became a candidate for the Springfield Township Committee in 1991.  Helped by a massive backlash against then-Democratic Governor Jim Florio’s $2.8 billion tax hike, Pappas won by a narrow 65-vote margin.  It was his first election to public office.

He took office in January 1992, and by June, he had already divided the local Republican organization in a very public split with Republican Mayor Philip Kurnos. Kurnos, a 73-year-old grandfather, told The Star-Ledger: “Pappas wants to control Springfield.  He wants to control purchasing and bidding. I don’t feel we have a Republican Party in Springfield anymore.  I think we have a Harry Pappas party.”

In August, Pappas asked the local Republican organization to “banish” Kurnos from the party. In November, two Pappas allies, Judith Blitzer and Harvey Fruchter, lost their campaigns for the Township Committee by over 1,000 votes after Democrats ran an almost entirely anti-Pappas campaign.

The following year, Pappas asked the Union County Prosecutor to investigate Kurnos for allowing the family of the local Board of Education President into the township pool on opening day and for hiring his grandson as a summer lifeguard.  The late Drew Ruotolo, the Union County Prosecutor, wrote to Pappas that his office has more important things to do than worry about Springfield’s swimming pools.

”I cannot and will not allow my office to become mired in the bog of political infighting that appears to be based largely upon rumor, speculation, and innuendo,” Ruotolo wrote to Pappas.

Eager to deliver the Union County Republican endorsement to Christine Todd Whitman in her 1993 gubernatorial primary against Cary Edwards, GOP County Chairman Frank X. McDermott canceled the party convention and instead awarded endorsements through a screening committee. Pappas became a candidate for the Republican nomination for Union County Freeholder and won a majority of the votes of the screening committee members for the third spot on the GOP ticket, along with incumbents Linda DiGiovanni and Linda Lee Kelly.

The decision to dump incumbent Freeholder Louis Santagata caused significant problems for the GOP leadership among rank-and-file county committee members, who both liked Santagata and resented the cancellation of the open convention.  A special meeting of the County Committee was held after the filing deadline, and Pappas lost that vote by a margin of more than 2-1. McDermott wrote to Pappas asking him to drop out of the race, but Pappas declined.

Republican National Committeeman Bill Palatucci, participating in the vote as a county committeeman from Westfield, told newspapers at the time that Pappas’ rejection was a vote of no confidence in his ability to win a general election.  In a vintage response, Pappas attacked Palatucci’s leadership of the 1992 New Jersey campaign for President Bush’s re-election, in which George H.W. Bush lost the state to Bill Clinton.

Pappas ran on the organization line and defeated a poorly funded Santagata in the GOP primary.  But Pappas ran more than 2,000 votes behind his two running mates countywide.  In Springfield, Pappas defeated Santagata by just eighteen votes, 322-304.

A few weeks after the primary, a Superior Court Judge ordered Pappas to pay Union County $264,000 in legal fees spent defending the county on his failed lawsuit.  Pappas could not satisfy the judgment, claiming that business problems left him without funds.  Personal financial records supplied to the court show that Pappas had no assets other than his Springfield home, which was worth $200,000 but had two mortgages on it and that he had made early withdrawals from his IRA.  Pappas sought to settle the case, saying he could afford to pay only $17,000, but the Union County Freeholder Board turned him down.  In that vote, two Republican Freeholders, Mario Paparozzi and James Keefe, joined the three Democratic Freeholders to turn down Pappas’ settlement offer by a 5-4 vote; Paparozzi later changed his vote.

Pappas was beaten badly in the general election.  Republican incumbents DiGiovanni and Kelly received 66,971 and 66,853 votes, respectively, but Democrat Linda Stender, the Mayor of Fanwood, won the third seat with 64,762 votes. Pappas ran sixth, with just 59,379 votes.

Pappas also finished last in Springfield, losing by 1,300 votes and running 700 votes behind his GOP running mates.  Democrats also swept the local Township Committee race in Springfield, again running a largely anti-Pappas campaign.

Despite his landslide defeat, Pappas announced in February 1994 that he was considering another bid for freeholder. But few Republicans took him seriously, and in April, announced that he wasn’t even running for a second term on the Township Committee.

In 1995, McDermott contacted newly-elected Essex County Executive James Treffinger about a job for Pappas in his new administration. With Treffinger’s help, Pappas became the purchasing agent for the Essex County Utilities Authority.

He left in 1997 to become the deputy executive director of the Union County Utilities Authority but was fired when the agency went private in 1998.  Pappas again responded by filing a lawsuit, which was dismissed.  He returned to Essex County in 1998 as a labor project specialist.

During the spirited contest for Union County Republican Chairman in 1998, Pappas planted his feet firmly in both camps and overstated his value to each side. Pappas was a longtime ally of incumbent McDermott but also attended meetings at the home of Union Township Republican Chairman Anthony DiGiovanni, who was running against the incumbent.

Pappas’ close friend, Springfield Republican Municipal Chairman Bill Ruocco, was running for party Vice Chairman on DiGiovanni’s slate, but Pappas became a “double agent” of sorts, working with both sides. Over one-third of the Springfield County Committee members were no-shows on the night of the vote.  McDermott defeated DiGiovanni by a vote of 311-282.

Pappas sought a political comeback in 1998, running for a Springfield Board of Education seat. He ran a typical campaign of Pappas but atypical of local school board races, with a negative message and, to a certain extent, scare tactics.  Pappas was soundly defeated, finishing a distant fifth in a field of five candidates.

In May 2000, Pappas was appointed to the $79,000-a-year Essex County Purchasing Director position.  That year, he backed Treffinger for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate against Union County favorite-son Bob Franks and Assemblyman Joel Weingarten for Franks’ seat in Congress. Treffinger and Weingarten each finished third in Springfield.

During a celebrated feud between Treffinger and Kevin O’Toole, an assemblyman and Treffinger’s former chief of staff, Pappas had agreed to deliver Union County Republican delegates to Treffinger in a special election for the Senate. In exchange, Treffinger had decided to back Pappas for the State Assembly in a primary against O’Toole.

A Republican close to O’Toole said that Pappas has worn out his welcome in Essex and that he is not a factor in the race to succeed O’Toole in the Assembly.  His campaign, one Essex County Republican insider says, is simply posturing for a patronage job, and Pappas felt that the longer he stays in the race, the higher his price will become.

In 1999, McDermott asked Pappas to assist Republicans in an uphill battle for Union County Freeholder.  Pappas sent a direct mail listing all the Union County vendors and what they contributed to the Democratic Party.  But some of the vendors whose names appeared on the list also donated to the Republicans and took issue with Pappas’ mailing.  As a result, some of those vendors cut off the already cash-starved Union County Republicans from further campaign donations.

Pappas left his position in Essex County in 2001 to take a job with the New Jersey Department of  Labor—his dependence upon the political fortunes of Gov. Donald DiFrancesco was ironic since Pappas was prepared to be one of the lone Union County Republicans to support another candidate.  Pappas had committed to join Treffinger in backing Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler for the Republican gubernatorial nomination after a supposed deal was cut between Treffinger and Schundler in 2000.

Party activists from both sides say that for 25 years, Pappas has boasted of his relationship with former Carter, claiming that he was an early supporter of Carter’s bid for the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination and that he served as a frequent advisor to the President.

But according to the Carter Library, which maintains detailed records of Carter’s minute-by-minute movement in the White House, Pappas saw Carter only once during his presidency.  On June 29, 1979, President Carter’s schedule shows that the President participated in a “photo opportunity” with Pappas and his wife, then a candidate for the New Jersey State Senate.  According to White House records, the session began at 2:00 PM and ended at 2:02 PM.  So, Pappas’ closeness to Carter may have allowed him to spend exactly 120 seconds with the President during his four years in the White House.

Pappas, insiders say, likes to present himself as a strong fundraiser, and his resume lists many campaign finance committees that he has served on, but the consensus is that he does not deliver.  His personal campaign contributions were virtually non-existent.

In 2000, Pappas personally contacted an employee of PoliticsNJ to determine what he could do to make this website’s Power List one of the one hundred most politically powerful people in New Jersey politics.  Pappas is the only individual to campaign for a spot on the list.  His campaign was unsuccessful.

By 2019, Pappas claimed to be an advisor to President Donald Trump and mounted an independent campaign for State Assembly in the 21st district as a conservative against incumbents Jon Bramnick and Nancy Munoz.   He finished last in a field of six candidates, receiving just 1,130 votes and less than one percent; Bramnick outdistanced Pappas by a margin of 28,819.

In that race, he faced allegations of bullying a 72-year-old cancer patient who lived above him in a Springfield garden apartment complex.

Pappas, now 79, is no longer listed in the New Jersey voter rolls.

One top Union County Democratic leader, in an e-mail to PoliticsNJ, said in 2001: “There are so many Harry stories floating around that it’s impossible to pick.  Frankly, none of them are particularly nice, and I suspect that at least 99% of them are true.  But, alas, I know the man.”