Gavin Newsom would follow Kean, Christie lead and pick a caretaker senator

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Sunday that he would make an interim appointment to the United States Senate if Dianne Feinstein steps down, bypassing the three Democratic House members contending for her seat in the 2024 primary election.

That’s the same decision New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean made in 1982 after four-term U.S. Senator Harrison Williams, Jr. resigned in 1982.

Williams, a Democrat, was indicted for his role in the Abscam scandal in 1980 and found guilty of bribery on May 1, 1981, but maintained his innocence and refused to resign from the Senate.

Republicans had ended a 24-year Democratic majority in 1980, and Williams’ seat was up in 1982.  In the background was the closest gubernatorial race in New Jersey history; after a recount that went to the end of November, Republican Tom Kean edged out Democrat Jim Florio by just 1,797 votes, 49.46% to 49.38%.

To avoid Kean’s appointment of a Republican U.S. Senator, Democrats in New Jersey and Washington began to intensify their pressure on Williams to resign so that the outgoing governor, Democrat Brendan Byrne, could make the appointment.  But Williams, whose sentencing had been pushed to February 1982, refused to go.

Democrats sharpened their push in the days leading up to Kean’s January 19, 1982 inauguration, which continued into inauguration day.

Byrne went to Kean’s inaugural with a letter in his suit pocket addressed to Secretary of State Donald Lan appointing former Senate President Joseph Merlino to the United States Senate.  Lan was ordered to remain at Byrne’s side, without fail, until the moment Kean took office, just in case Williams changed his mind at the last minute and tendered his resignation.

In March, ten months after Williams’ conviction, the United States Senate moved to debate whether the gentleman from New Jersey would become just the third U.S. Senator in history – and the first since the Civil War – to be expelled.  Expulsion has been the recommendation of the Senate Ethics Committee and required a two-thirds vote.

Still, the 62-year-old Williams refused to go.

On March 10, at the end of the fifth day of the Senate expulsion trial, the junior senator from New Jersey, Bill Bradley, announced that he would vote to expel Williams.  With a vote near and without the support to avoid being expelled, Williams, for the first time, hinted that resignation was an option.

“I’m going back to the Book of John, Chapter 8, Verse 7, and think it over,” Williams told reporters.

Williams resigned the following day.

How Kean filled the seat

That gave Kean, in office for less than two months, the chance to appoint a Republican to the U.S. Senate.

This wasn’t an easy decision for the fledgling governor: Rep. Millicent Fenwick (R-Bernardsville) and conservative Jeff Bell, a former Reagan speechwriter who had beaten a four-term incumbent in the 1978 GOP Senate primary, were already in the race.  A third candidate, Rep. Jim Courter (R-Allamuchy), was also mulling a U.S. Senate bid and had scheduled his announcement in a few days; he decided not to run.

Kean’s top strategist, Roger Stone, brought Bell and Courter to the Kean campaign as co-chairs, a move that brought a conservative seal of approval for the moderate Kean in the Republican gubernatorial primary.   Stone’s move to install Bell as the titular leaders of Kean’s campaign played a significant role in Kean securing the nomination.

Fenwick, the colorful, pipe-smoking inspiration for a Doonesbury character, had remained neutral in the gubernatorial primary; she and Kean were old friends, even though they ran against each other for an open House seat in a 1974 primary (Fenwick won by 83 votes).   She had considerable support among national and state Republicans.

The U.S. Senate seat was left vacant for over a month as Kean continued mulling his options.  He invited over 100 Republican officeholders and community leaders to offer their recommendations, giving out a private code on the outside of an envelope to assure that only the governor would open those letters.

In the meantime, Fenwick and Bell competed at county GOP conventions for organization endorsements.

Rather than give one of the candidates the advantage of incumbency in the primary and general elections, Kean decided to go with a caretaker.  He picked Nicholas Brady, a Wall Street banker, and old friend who had headed his gubernatorial transition to be nomination interim U.S. Senator.

Fenwick defeated Bell in the primary by a 54%-46% margin but lost the general election in an upset to Democrat Frank Lautenberg, a first-time candidate who self-funded his campaign, by a little more than three percentage points.   Brady resigned early, and Kean appointed Lautenberg to give him a jump on seniority; Lautenberg was sworn into the Senate in Colorado, where he was on a family vacation.

Kean was the only governor in New Jersey history to appoint someone to replace a U.S. Senator who had defeated his father; Williams beat ten-term Rep. Robert W. Kean (R-Livingston) in 1958.

Christie’s caretaker

Another Republican governor, Chris Christie, made a similar choice in 2013 after Lautenberg died in office.  Instead of naming a Republican who might be able to hold the seat in a special election, he opted for a caretaker: Attorney General Jeff Chiesa.

Christie was not pleased about the possibility of a campaign for an open U.S. Senate seat competing for oxygen with his own re-election bid.  He already had one running mate, Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno, and the idea of a second one horrified him.

By the time of Lautenberg’s death in June 2013, Christie already had a big lead in the governor’s race; some Republicans felt holding the special election for Senate concurrent with the general election would give them a shot at scoring their first U.S. Senate win since 1972.

One idea floated by underlings was to appoint conservative magazine publisher and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes to the U.S. Senate, with the idea that Forbes would self-fund his campaign.

But the idea of the popular Democratic frontrunner, popular Newark Mayor Cory Booker, being on the same ballot scared the bejeebers out of Christie.   To prevent that, Christie opted for an expensive October 16 special election, where Booker beat former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan by almost eleven points.

Feinstein, 90, is not seeking re-election.  A poll released last week  puts Reps. Steve Schiff and Katie Porter in a statistical tie, 20%-17%, with Rep. Barbara Lee at 7%.