James Cafiero, former Senate minority leader, dies at 94

James S. Cafiero, a gentle and affable South Jersey Republican who served as minority leader of the New Jersey State Senate in the 1970s, died this week.  He was 94.

With a sharp sense of humor and an extraordinary ability to butcher the English language, Cafiero fought against higher taxes, advocated for children and the environment, and wrote the state’s anti-stalking laws.  He authored legislation that permitted local police departments to hold drunk drivers until they became sober and fought to preserve farmland and reduce the cost of prescription drugs for seniors.

His death comes six weeks after his longtime running mate,  James R. Hurley (R-Millville), died at age 91.

“Senator Cafiero’s legacy will forever be etched in the history of our state, as he dedicated his life to serving the residents of New Jersey with unwavering passion and commitment,” said State Sen. Michael Testa, Jr. (R-Vineland), who holds Cafiero’s old seat. I can’t help but feel a profound sense of loss, but I’m also filled with immense gratitude for the invaluable guidance and wisdom he generously shared with me and countless others. May we honor his memory by continuing his legacy of selfless service and dedication to the betterment of all New Jerseyans.”

Cafiero grew up in politics.  His late father, Anthony J. Cafiero (R-North Wildwood), served as the Cape May County Prosecutor, Court of Common Pleas Judge, delegate to the New Jersey Constitutional Convention in 1947, State Senator from 1948 to 1954, and a Superior Court Judge from 1954 to 1970.

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s One Man, One Vote decision and a 1966 special New Jersey Constitutional Convention, legislative reapportionment created a Cumberland-Cape May legislative district in 1967.

Cafiero, then an assistant Cape May County Prosecutor, became a candidate for one of two Assembly seats on a ticket with Hurley; former Assemblyman Robert Kay (R-Wildwood) ran for the Senate.

Cafiero was the top vote-getter in that race, and Hurley defeated one-term Democratic Assemblyman Marvin Perskie (D-Wildwood Crest) by 3,152 votes, 28,364 to 25,212.  (Perskie, the uncle of future Senate Majority Leader Steven Perskie and a member of one of Atlantic County’s most prominent political families had been preparing to take on legendary Republican boss Frank Farley for the Senate if Atlantic and Cape May had remained in the same legislative district.)

Hurley and Cafiero were re-elected in 1969 by more than 16,000 votes.

In 1971, Cape May County Republicans declined to support Kay for re-election to a second term.  Cafiero and Hurley expressed interest in running for the Senate, but circulated petitions for both offices just in case.

Kay had initially said he would abide by the wishes of the Cape May GOP organization but then threatened to run in the Republican primary with or without party support.

The two county chairs, Nello Melini of Cape May and John Spoltore of Cumberland, agreed to a deal where Cafiero would get the Senate seat, and both the Assembly seats would go to Cumberland.  Joseph Chinnici, a coat manufacturer who had served as a Bridgeton councilman and Cumberland County freeholder, joined Hurley on the Assembly ticket.

That caused Kay to step aside and not run in the primary.

In the general election, Cafiero faced Democrat Paul Porreca, a former Millville commissioner who had been the Democratic congressional candidate in 1962 against three-term Rep. Milton Glenn (R-Margate) in New Jersey’s 2nd district when he was 27.

In Republican Gov. William Cahill’s mid-term election, legislative races in South Jersey turned out to be close.

Cafiero won the general by a slim 916-vote margin, 50%-48%, against Porreca.  Porreca, who outpolled his Democratic running mates by more than 3,000 votes, won Cumberland by 4,358 votes, but Cafiero won with a 5,274-vote plurality in Cape May.

That was the year Atlantic County Democrats toppled Frank “Hap” Farley’s political machine, tossing the 31-year senator by nearly 18 points.

In 1972, Republican Gov. William Cahill nominated Porreca to a Superior Court judgeship.  Cafiero was only too happy to sign off and take Porreca out of partisan politics.

“I called him from a pay phone from the courthouse and asked if he would support me,” Porreca told the New Jersey Globe not long before he died in 2020.   Cafiero’s response, he said: “God bless you.”

As a freshman senator in 1972, Cafiero was chairman of the Joint Appropriations Committee, the third most powerful post in the legislature behind Senate President Alfred Beadleston (R-Red Bank) and Assembly Speaker Thomas Kean (R-Livingston).

Despite the Watergate wave election of 1973 that left Republicans with ten State Senate seats and fourteen seats in the Assembly, Cafiero was re-elected by 9,874 votes, 58%-42%, against Democrat William Bowen, the executive director of the Bridgeton Housing Authority.   He won 71% in Cape May, while Bowen carried Cumberland by 1,606 votes, 52%-48%.

The Republican candidate for governor was Rep. Charles Sandman (R-Erma), who carried his home county of Cape May by 7,966 votes, with Democrat Brendan Byrne winning Cumberland by 3,369 – a 4,597 vote plurality for Sandman in the 1st district.

Cafiero was elected Senate Minority Leader in 1976 during an era when legislative leadership positions rotated every two years.  Cafiero served as Majority Whip in 1973 and Assistant Minority Leader in 1974 and 1975.

As minority leader, Cafiero led the Senate GOP’s opposition to Byrne’s proposal to establish a state income tax.  In 1977, he offered Republican votes to a Democrat willing to challenge Senate President Matthew Feldman, who had pleaded guilty to paying illegal kickbacks to customers at his wholesale liquor business, but could not find any takers.

That year, Hurley became Assembly Minority Leader when Kean gave up the post to run for governor.  The 1st district had both minority leaders, which would not happen again until Tom Kean, Jr. (R-Westfield) and Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield) held the Senate and Assembly minority leader posts from 2012 to 2022.

Cafiero was re-elected in 1977 against Democrat Frank Kneiser, a 33-year-old cable television executive who hosted a local show during the early years of cable TV in New Jersey.   He won by 13,714 votes, 62%-38%, carrying Cape May by a 2-1 margin and Cumberland by sixteen percentage points.

He had hoped to become Senate President if Republicans took back control, but the GOP only picked up three seats in 1977, when Byrne mounted a stunning come-from-behind re-election bid.  He rotated out of leadership at the start of his third term in January 1978.

In 1981, Cafiero decided not to seek re-election to the Senate.  His retirement allowed his law partner, Stone Harbor Solicitor William Balliette, to represent the borough in a development fight with the Department of Environmental Protection; ethics rules prevented law firms of legislators from appearing before state agencies.

Hurley succeeded Cafiero in the Senate.

But in early 1990, just before Democrat Jim Florio took office as governor, Hurley resigned to become a New Jersey Casino Control Commission commissioner.  That gave Cafiero a chance to return to the Senate.

The Cape May-Cumberland legislative district had become politically competitive, and Cafiero’s election was hardly automatic. When Chinnici and another Republican, Guy Muziani (R-Wildwood), retired from the Assembly, Democrat Edward Salmon, a Cumberland County freeholder, captured one of the Assembly seats.  (The other one went to Republican Frank LoBiondo, also a Cumberland freeholder.)

In 1989, Florio won 63.5% in Cumberland and 55% in Cape May against Republican Jim Courter.  Salmon won a landslide victory, and LoBiondo held on by just 1,407 votes.

After LoBiondo passed up a chance to run for Senate, Republicans viewed Cafiero as their strongest possible candidate against Salmon, who was expected to try to flip the seat for Democrats in a 1990 special election.

Cafiero won a January special election convention and immediately took his Senate seat.

By November, after Florio had proposed massive tax increases, Democratic hopes of winning the 1st district Senate seat dimmed.   Cafiero defeated Salmon by 8,887 votes, 58%-42%.   Cafiero won Cape May by 6,366 votes, and the Cumberland portion of the district by 2,521.

Cafiero’s second stint in the Senate would last thirteen years.

In the 1991 Republican wave election, he won 62% of the vote against Democrat Ronald Casella, who spent ten weeks as an assemblyman from Camden County in 1975 and 1976.  He took 62% in 1993 against Democrat John Spahn, the sales manager for a local radio station, WSKR; against Cape May County Democratic Chairman John Rauh, Cafiero won 61%.

The toughest and closest race of Cafiero’s career came in 2001 when he faced William J. Hughes, Jr., a former federal prosecutor and the son of a popular former ten-term congressman and Ambassador to Panama.

Cafiero won that race by just 441 votes, 50.4% to 49.6%.  He won 54.4% in Cape May, but Hughes took the Cumberland towns in the 1st with 54.7% and a small part of Atlantic with 57%.   Had Cafiero lost, Democrats would have won 21 seats in the Senate and not shared control with the GOP for the next two years.

That year, Democrat Jeff Van Drew, a Cape May freeholder, flipped one of the two Assembly seats in the district; Democrat James E. McGreevey came within 353 votes of carrying Cape May, and won the 1st by a wide margin.

During his second Senate stint, Cafiero served as Majority Whip and the Senate Senior Citizens, Veterans’ Affairs and Human Services Committee chairman.

In 2003, Cafiero, then 74,  announced his retirement for the second time and was succeeded in the Senate by Assemblyman Nicholas Asselta (R-Vineland).    Asselta had considered challenging Cafiero in the primary; he ran roughly 5,000 votes ahead of Cafiero in 2001.  After just two years, Van Drew decided not to risk his Assembly seat, and Asselta ran unopposed in the general election.

Cafiero had become an assistant prosecutor in Cape May, a part-time post, in the late 1950s; he also served as president of the Cape May County Bar Association.   He served as solicitor for several municipalities and the Lower Township Municipal Utilities Authority, and was counsel to the Delaware River and Bay Authority.

He attended the Lawrenceville School and Princeton University and received his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

The former senator is survived by his wife, Pat, and their children and grandchildren.