Barry T. Parker, an affable and admired former Assembly Speaker and Senate Minority Leader who sought the Republican nomination for governor of New Jersey in 1981, died on September 17. He was 93.
During his fourteen years in Trenton, Parker became known as a staunch supporter of tax incentives to attract business investment to New Jersey, lower taxes for residents and corporations, private sector job creation, clean water, farmland preservation, expanded vocational education, and state assistance for New Jersey’s urban centers. He was somewhere between moderate and conservative, supporting bans on abortion, but also the Equal Rights Amendment.
“He was a leader and very effective legislator at a time when personal relationships and goodwill governed the political process,” said Steven Perskie, a former Atlantic County legislator who is one of four living New Jerseyans to serve with Parker in the Senate. “He was universally liked and respected.”
Parker was a 32-year-old attorney from Mount Holly when he first sought a seat in the New Jersey Legislature in 1965. His father, Harold “Piney” Parker, was a former Burlington County GOP Chairman and prosecutor and the named partner of Parker McCay, an influential South Jersey law firm.
Burlington County Republicans dropped Assemblyman Robert Bergland (R-Willingboro) from their ticket because of his alleged ties to the ultra-conservative John Birch Society. One year earlier, Lyndon Johnson won Burlington County by 30 percentage points against Barry Goldwater.
Parker defeated Bergland by roughly 4,500 votes in the three-candidate Republican primary.
Parker ran with Assemblyman Walter Smith, Jr. (R-Cinnaminson) on a slate headed by gubernatorial candidate Wayne Dumont, a state senator from Warren County; Bergland ran with another lawmaker running for governor, State Sen. Charles Sandman of Cape May. Dumont won Burlington by 200 votes in the GOP primary.
In the general election, Smith (32,426) and Parker (32,082) defeated Democrats William McDaniel (30,628), the mayor of Wrightstown, and Burlington City Councilman Edward Razgatis (30,176). Smith and Parker overcame the coattails of Democratic Gov. Richard J. Hughes, who carried Burlington County by 4,802 votes against Dumont.
In 1967, Parker and Smith were easily re-elected, defeating Democrats Peter Casey and David Vechesky by over 8,000 votes. The two Republicans won again in 1969, by more than 10,000 votes, against Democrats Charles Yates and John Lake. Yates would later win election to the Assembly and serve with Parker in the Senate.
Parker became Assembly Assistant Majority Leader in 1969 – a post that set him on a course to become speaker under the legislature’s old one-year leadership rotation system. He defeated Assembly Appropriations Committee Chairman Douglas Gimson (R-Lambertville), who was viewed as more conservative, in a closed-door vote of the Republican caucus; a group of North Jersey Republicans, including Assemblyman Peter McDonough (R-Plainfield), aided Parker, and while the total vote count was never publicly released, Parker was said to have won in a landslide.
He became Majority Leader in 1970 and Speaker in 1971 when he was 39. When Parker was Speaker, Thomas H. Kean (R-Livingston), three years younger, served as Majority Leader.
As Speaker, Parker was mostly an ally of another South Jersey Republican, Gov. William Cahill, a former congressman from Camden County. He served as acting governor in 1971.
Just a few months after becoming Speaker, Parker became a candidate for the State Senate. A new map created a Senate seat that included 23 municipalities in Burlington County and seven in Ocean.
That put Parker in a general election fight with a close friend, Democrat Fred Detrick, Jr., the mayor of Pemberton. Parker won the race by 9,192 votes, a margin of 62.5% to 37.5%.
Redistricting for the 1973 election created the first map of 40 legislative districts, each with one senator and two Assembly seats. The new 8th district included parts of Burlington, Monmouth, and Mercer counties.
In a Democratic tidal wave connected to Watergate and scandals in the Cahill administration, Republicans lost their Senate majority and were left with ten GOP senators. Parker survived, defeating Democrat Len DiDonato, the facilities director at Mercer County College, by 2,499 votes, an 8-point margin. But in the same legislative district, Democrat John Sweeney (D-Florence) was the top vote-getter; Republican Clifford Snedeker (R-Lawrence) took the second seat by 1,159 votes over his running mate, Assemblyman Kenneth Wilkie (R-Florence).
In 1977, Parker was re-elected to a third term by 5,875 votes, 55%-45%, against Charles Ryan, a physician from Southampton. Earlier that year, he had briefly considered a run for governor, but instead backed former Senate President Raymond Bateman.
Parker sought to join the Senate Republican leadership after the 1977 election, when the GOP flipped three Senate seats. He was elected Minority Whip in a three-way contest with James Wallwork (R-Short Hills) and James Vreeland (R-Montville).
Legislative leadership posts were still rotated; Parker was elected Senate Minority Leader without opposition after the 1979 midterm Assembly elections. Wallwork and Vreeland joined his leadership team.
He announced his candidacy for governor shortly after the 1980 election, saying he was ideologically aligned with President-elect Ronald Reagan.
Parker finished fifth in a field of eight Republicans; he received 7% of the vote, nine points behind Wallwork, who finished fourth. Kean won that primary with 31% of the vote.
Parker was 49 when his Senate term expired in January 1981. He spent the remainder of his career at Parker McCay. He retired in 1996 after 38 years at the firm. His brother, David Parker, was the firm’s managing partner.
After the Senate, Parker served on the board of directors of the Mount Holly Water Company and the Elizabethtown Water Company. He was a member of the Workers’ Compensation Commission on Judicial Performance.
A hunting and fishing enthusiast, Parker graduated from Bucknell University and Rutgers Law School.
Senate Minority Leader Anthony Bucco praised Parker as a “dedicated New Jersey public servant whose years of service reflected a commitment to his community and to the people of the state.”
“His passing is an opportunity to remember not only his public career, but also the relationships he built and the lives he touched along the way,” Bucco stated. “May Barry’s memory be a blessing and may his contributions to New Jersey continue to be remembered with gratitude and respect.”
Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin said Parker’s “years of service to this state left a lasting mark.”
With Parker’s death, there are now six living former Assembly Speakers: Kean, who followed Parker in the post in 1972; Joseph Doria, Jack Collins, Albio Sires, Joseph Roberts, and Vincent Prieto.