Ronald Dancer, longtime assemblyman, dies at 73

Ronald S. Dancer, a thoughtful and effective assemblyman from Ocean County for nearly 20 years, has died after a long illness.  He was 73.

A conservative Republican, Dancer had earned respect and admiration from colleagues on both sides of the aisle.  Dancer won a special election to the State Assembly on his third try in 2002 following the death of Melvin Cottrell (R-Jackson).

A horse breeder and trainer, Dancer began his political career in 1989, when he ran in a special election convention for State Assembly in the old 9th district after Assemblyman John Hendrickson (R-Eagleswood) resigned to take a job at the Department of Community Affairs.

Seven candidates initially sought the Assembly seat, including Cottrell, the mayor of Jackson, and John P. Kelly, an Eaglewood township committeeman and now an Ocean County commissioner.

By the night of the election, the race was down to Dancer and Lacey Mayor Christopher Connors, the son of 9th district State Sen. Leonard Connors (R-Surf City).  Connors, now a state senator, won by 18 votes, 98-80, a 50.6% to 49.4% margin.

Four months later, Dancer found himself as the new mayor of Plumsted.

Township Committeeman Anthony Blanda resigned on December 15 and Dancer was the only candidate submitted by the local Republican county committee to replace him.

Dancer was sworn in on January 1, 1990 and was immediately selected to serve as mayor.   He served as Plumsted’s mayor until 2011.   During his 21 years in local government, Dancer had little trouble winning re-election in his hometown.

His second chance at a State Assembly came in 1991 after legislative redistricting eliminated the Essex-based 30th district and moved it to South Jersey to create a new Ocean-Burlington-Monmouth seat.

Several Ocean County candidates emerged to run for the seats, including former Assemblyman and Lakewood Mayor Bob Singer, former Jackson Township Committeeman, Peter Carlson, Cottrell and Dancer.

Ocean County GOP Chairman Joseph Buckalew and Burlington County GOP Chairman Glenn Paulsen cut a deal – it was uneasy at first — for the Senate seat to go to 75-year-old John E. Dimon, a 75-year-old former Burlington County Republican Chairman who served as GOP State Chairman from 1970 to 1973.   Ocean got the two Assembly seats, and the party picked Singer and Cottrell over Dancer.

Dimon died in 1993 and Republicans picked Singer to replace him.  Bordentown Mayor Joseph Malone ran for Singer’s Assembly seat, keeping one of the 30th district seats in Burlington.  (Malone became a longtime friend of Dancer and as recently as last month sat in his chair and cast Assembly votes while Dancer, too sick to go the floor, sat in his car in the statehouse garage.)

Cottrell was elected six times and died in office on October 9, 2002 of complications following surgery.

Republican county committee members from Ocean, Burlington and Monmouth held a special election convention on November 12 to fill Cottrell’s seat.   Dancer faced 33-year-old Joseph DiBella, a former Sayreville councilman who had Just won election to the Howell Township Council one week earlier.

Dancer defeated DiBella by 34 votes, 106-72, a margin of 20 percentage points.

In 2003, he won his first full term in the Assembly by more than 10,000 votes as part of a Republican legislative slate of Singer & Dancer.

Dancer won nine more times, all by impressive margins.   In 2021, he won by almost 23,000 votes.

Redistricting in 2011 drastically altered his district.  He was moved from the 30th to the newly-created 12th, which spanned from Old Bridge in Middlesex County to New Hanover in Burlington County, a 60-mile span that incudes views of Staten Island and the Pinelands.   His new running mates were State Sen. Sam Thompson (R-Old Bridge) and Rob Clifton (R-Matawan).

During his nearly two decades in the Assembly, Dancer served as deputy minority leader and assistant minority leader.  He served on the Agriculture and Food Security , Military and Veterans’ Affairs, and Tourism, Gaming and the Arts committees.

This month, Gov. Phil Murphy signed Dancer’s bill that expanded the number of military families that qualified for a Gold Star ID card to include domestic and civil union partners and children.

As a legislator, Dancer had introduced bills preventing sex offenders from living near their victims, providing security programs for houses of worship, tax incentives for “shop local” programs., and the prohibition of welfare checks being issued to dead people.   He spent his career advocating for lower taxes, reduced government spending, and in support of the horse racing, farming and fish and wildlife industries.

Dancer was well-known in Ocean County as a horse breeder.  His late father, Stanley F. Dancer, was an internationally acclaimed harness racing driver and horse trainer who won three horse racing Triple Crowns.  He spent 22 years as a professional horse trainer and driver with the Stanley Dancer Horse Racing Stables.

He became involved in Ocean County Republican politics in the 1980s.  He served as chairman of  the Plumsted Planning Board – he’s held a seat on that board since 1983 — and on the Ocean County Planning Board, Agricultural Development Board, and Board of Social Services.

Later, he worked for the Ocean County Adjuster.

Dancer served in the U.S. Army from 1969 to 1971.

He is survived by his wife of 54 years, Brenda, two children and three grandchildren.

Murphy announced on Saturday that flags will fly at half-staff at state buildings in honor of Dancer.