David Schwartz, former assemblyman, congressional candidate, dies at 83

David C. Schwartz, a smart, fiery former assemblyman from Middlesex County who spent fourteen years in Trenton fighting to solve New Jersey’s housing crisis, died on June 10.  He was 83.

State Sen. Robert Smith (D-Piscataway) announced Schwartz’ death.

A retired Rutgers University political science professor, Schwartz scored an off-the-line Democratic primary victory in 1979 after party leaders had dumped him from the ticket as he sought a second term in the legislature.

The former Highland Park council president could be abrasive, but few in the legislature worked as hard.

Schwartz was serving as a Highland Park councilman in 1977 when the legendary John A. Lynch (D-New Brunswick), a former Senate President and New Brunswick mayor who was battling cancer, announced his retirement after 22 years in the Senate.

Assembly Speaker William Hamilton (D-New Brunswick) ran for the Senate – he edged out Piscataway Mayor Ted Light for party support — and Middlesex Democrats backed Schwartz over Light, former Piscataway Councilman Paul Comiskey, and New Brunswick Council President George Hendricks to fill the open Assembly seat.

When the 17th was drawn in 1973, it included New Brunswick, Piscataway, Dunellen, Highland Park, Middlesex Borough, South Plainfield in Middlesex County and Franklin and Manville in Somerset.

In the general election, Schwartz and incumbent Joseph Patero (D-Manville) defeated attorney Jeffrey Brindle, now the executive director of the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, by 5,758 votes.

Light was anxious to go to the legislature and launched a bid to take one of the two 17th district Assembly seats.  He persuaded the county chairman, Nicholas Venezia, partly by threatening to run off the line himself.

Venezia chose to drop Schwartz and not Patero,  honoring a deal he made with Somerset County Democrats to get one of the Assembly seats in a district that included Manville and Franklin Township.

That deal went badly for Middlesex after Somerset Democrats voted to back Schwartz on the line with Patero.  After Venezia had a little chat with Patero, it was agreed that the incumbent would eschew the line and run with Light in Somerset.

In order to secure a better ballot position, Schwartz recruited three of his friends from Highland Park to for Middlesex County freeholder on a line her formed.  One of the freeholder candidates was Ross K. Baker, a Rutgers political science professor of national prominence.

Schwartz turned out to be a vociferous campaigner.  He said that his constituents ought not be deprived of effective representation just because a few political bosses wanted someone else.  He secured the endorsement of the New Jersey AFL-CIO, much to Venezia’s chagrin.

The race between Schwartz and Patero got especially bitter during the final days of the campaign.  Schwartz filed a libel suit against Patero after a campaign leaflet with his former running mate’s disclaimer alleged that he backed legislation to lower the legal age of sexual consent.

Both had voted for a bill that changed the consent age from 16 to 13 as part of sweeping changes to the criminal code, and many legislators claimed ignorance to that particular section of the legislation.  Both Schwartz and Patero voted to raise the age back to 16.

Light said he approved the flyer and the printer made a mistake.

Steve DeMicco, the executive director of the New Jersey Public Interest Group (PIRG), also sough the Democratic nomination for State Assembly.

Primary Day was a romp for Schwartz, who won 5,494 votes.  Patero finished second with 3,786 votes, just 196 votes ahead of Light.  DeMicco finished fourth with 2,720.  Schwartz beat Light in Middlesex by 1,204 and in Somerset by 700 votes, a near 2-1 margin.

Schwartz outraised Light by a 3-1 margin, $33,000 to $11,000.  Patero reported raising less than $1,000 and DeMicco had a haul of $7,300.

Later that year, Hamilton hired DeMicco as his staff director; he later went on to work as a Democratic political consultant.

Schwartz sought an open congressional seat in the Middlesex-based 15th district in 1980 after nine-term incumbent, Edward Patten, retired.

Patten had become damaged by news stories detailing his involvement in the Koreagate scandal.  Lobbyist Tongsun Park was charged with using funds provided by the government of South Korea to bribe six congressmen as part of a bid to ensure that the United States kept their military presence there.  The allegation against Patten was that he solicited an illegal campaign contribution from Park, including funds that found their way into the account of the Middlesex County Democrats. Patten allegedly took cash contributions from Park and then wrote personal checks to the county organization.

A 30-year-old Edison attorney, George Spadoro, challenged Patten in the Democratic primary and held him to 59% of the vote, a 6,323-vote plurality.  (Spadoro would later become the mayor of Edison and an assemblyman.)  Republicans nominated Wiley to run against him.

Summer headlines on Koreagate dominated the summer news, as well as Patten’s testimony before the House Ethics Committee.  Patten steadfastly proclaimed his innocence.  In October, the Ethics panel voted unanimously to clear him of the charges.  And the Friday before the election, state Attorney General John Degnan announced that he had cleared Patten of any wrongdoing in Koreagate, which had become a state issue since some of the contributions had come to the county party organization.

Patten also faced allegations that he failed to disclose his assets as required by House rules.  Patten had filed a financial disclosure saying that he had no personal assets; he eventually announced that all his assets were in his wife’s name.

The scandal took its toll on Patten.  He won re-election, but just narrowly 48%–46%, with a plurality of only 2,836 votes.

Despite his near defeat, Patten tried to hang on and run for a tenth term.  Democrats were desperate for him to retire, but as the list of potential successors began to grow, party leaders were still reluctant to dump him from the organization line.

Finally, county chairman Nicholas Venezia said that Patten would not automatically receive the organization line and need to appear before the screening committee.  Patten said he would not seek party support and would step aside if they didn’t unanimously endorse him.

One possible candidate, Perth Amboy City Administrator (and future Monroe mayor) Richard Pucci, railed against party bosses and called for an open primary.

In a strange twist, there was a newspaper report that Patten was among the congressmen targeted by the FBI sting operation known as ABSCAM, but that he refused to accept a bribe.  Patten strongly denied that.

Within a few weeks, Patten realized his career was over and announced that he would not seek re-election.

The Middlesex Democratic organization backed Senate Majority Leader Bernard Dwyer (D-Edison), a popular former Edison mayor, for the congressional seat.

Schwartz, Spadoro and Pucci ran off-the-line.

Dwyer defeated Schwartz by 3,528 votes, 32%-25%, followed by Spadoro (23%), Pucci (15%), and Doris Sipos (3.5%)

Dwyer won the general election with 53% of the vote in a district that Republican Ronald Reagan carried by seven points.

Hamilton left the Senate to seek the Democratic nomination for governor in 1981.  He finished eighth in a field of thirteen candidates with 3% of the statewide vote.  He won Middlesex County.

But Schwartz received no consideration for the open Middlesex Senate seat.

The new Senator from the 17th was John Lynch, the mayor of New Brunswick and the son of the former Senate President.  He defeated Republican Donald Douglas with 61% of the vote.

The map was redrawn for the 1981 elections and the Somerset County portion of the district was replaced by Plainfield in Union County.  Patero was now in the Mercer/Middlesex-based 14th district and Democrats picked Plainfield city councilwoman Angela Perun to fill the second Assembly seat.

Perun defeated Light in the Democratic primary by 1,899 votes.

In 1985, Middlesex County Democrats declined to support Perun for re-election to a third term and put Smit, the Piscataway mayor on the organization line.

Perun switched parties and sought re-election as a Republican.  With popular Gov. Tom Kean heading the ticket, Perun can within 452 votes of defeating Smith.

Schwartz retired from the Assembly in 1991 and Democrats replaced him with Union County freeholder Jerry Green, the Plainfield Democratic municipal chairman.

He was a 1960 graduate of Brooklyn College and received his masters and doctorate from  the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.   Schwartz also served as chairman of the Middlesex County Senior Citizens Services Commission.