A primer on how John Burzichelli first got to Trenton

Two dozen years ago, onetime Republican John Burzichelli lit the match that ignited a civil war in South Jersey politics, resulting in Steve Sweeney becoming the longest-serving Senate President in New Jersey history.

The story began with Raymond Zane, a 34-year-old lawyer, and first-year Gloucester County freeholder, when Republican State Sen. James Turner got in trouble after being convicted of planting drugs in the car and garage of Democratic Assemblyman Kenneth Gewertz.  But the tactic went bad after the police detective sensed that the tip he received from Turner might not be completely altruistic. An investigation led to Turner’s arrest on charges that he hired three known criminals to plant a large amount of amphetamines in the Gewertz home. A jury convicted the 44-year-old Turner in less than two hours.

After he was sentenced to five years in prison and removed from the Senate in 1973, Turner refused to drop his re-election bid in the newly-drawn 3rd district.   Since he was appealing his conviction, a judge ruled that Turner could remain in the race.

Republicans, not realizing the magnitude of the anti-GOP Watergate wave that was about to hit, tried to hold onto the seat by running popular Gloucester County Sheriff Walter Fish as a write-in candidate.  Zane defeated Fish, 64%-20%, with 16% of the voters still wanting Turner as their senator.

During his 28 years in the Senate, Zane was easily the most conservative member of the Senate Democratic caucus.  He was popular enough with voters in his district to win seven re-election campaigns without ever falling below 61%.

Legislative elections were uncomplicated as a series of Democrats – Donald Stewart, Martin Herman, and Thomas Pankok – won 3rd district Assembly seats with little trouble.

But that changed in 1985 when Gov. Tom Kean’s landslide re-election allowed Republicans Jack Collin, an Elmer school board member, and Gloucester County Freeholder Gary Stuhltrager to win the two 3rd district Senate seats; Zane was not up that year.

Two years later, Republicans eyed the Senate eat – the GOP wanted Collins or Stuhltrager to run – but in the end, they ran a throw-away candidate, John Ward, a rail traffic controller, and former Presbyterian minister.  Zane received 63%.

That came after a much-denied clandestine non-aggression pact, aka deal, between Zane, Collins, and Stuhltrager.  Zane didn’t get involved in the Assembly race, and Collins and Stuhltrager didn’t try to move up to the Senate. The 3rd district remained divided between a Democratic senator and two Democratic assemblymen for sixteen years – the longest tenure of a split district in state history.

The problem for Zane was that nobody told Burzichelli, the 44-year-old mayor of Paulsboro, about the deal when he ran for the Assembly in 1999 and became frustrated by Zane’s unwillingness to help him win.

In retaliation for Zane’s actions – and because Angelini thought the Senator was too greedy –  Gloucester County government entities stripped Zane of more than $175,000 worth of legal work, and Zane’s son, Freeholder Raymond Zane II lost his position as Vice President of the Freeholder Board.

The split between Zane and the Democrats widened in 2000 when Zane attempted to switch local party organizations from supporting former Gov. Jim Florio for U.S. Senate to Jon Corzine.  Pankok, who became the Salem County Democratic Chairman after losing his Assembly seat, went public with allegations that Zane offered campaign contributions to Salem Democrats on behalf of Corzine in exchange for dropping their support of Florio.

Zane tried to go to war with Angelini, criticizing Angelini’s alliance with South Jersey Democratic leader George Norcross and bringing boss-style politics to Gloucester.  Angelini threatened Zane with a primary challenge in 2001, and Sweeney acknowledged in May 2000 that he was likely to be the candidate.

Greenwich Democratic Municipal Chairman Anthony Velahos and East Greenwich Democratic Municipal Chairman Jeffrey Malinoski , both Zane allies, were stripped of their membership on the Democratic screening committee by Angelini after they endorsed Corzine for U.S. Senate.

Zane ran two candidates for freeholder in the 2000 Democratic primary, recruiting East Greenwich Mayor Dalyn Currey and former Monroe school board member Willie Carter (on a slate with Corzine) to challenge incumbents Bob Damminger and Bill Krebs.  Zane’s candidates got destroyed – losing by more than 40 points.  Angelini’s sheriff candidate, Gilbert Miller, won 74% of the vote against Zane’s candidate, Peter Villegas.

In early 2001, Zane’s son showed up at his freeholder office to find that the freeholder director, Sweeney, had moved his office to one about one-third of the size.  A few weeks later, Zane announced that he was switching parties and would seek re-election as a Republican.

Zane accused Sweeney of offering paid legal jobs to Zane to get him to drop out of the race, but Sweeney denied that.

With Norcross’ help, Sweeney set the record for the most money spent in a legislative race in New Jersey history up to that point: he raised $1.9 million, plus another $457,000 for a joint campaign account with Burzichelli and Douglas Fisher.  Zane raised $625,000.  Sweeney was on Philadelphia television and did an estimated 30 direct mail pieces.

Zane carried Salem County, but by just 474 votes.  Sweeney won Gloucester by 1,152 votes and carried the Cumberland portion of the district by 1,057 votes.  That gave Sweeney a 1,735-vote win – 51.5% to 48.5%.

George and Donald Norcross joined Sweeney at the podium when he gave his victory speech.

In 2003, Zane sought a rematch with Sweeney.  After the primary, after an ethics complaint was filed against him and following a series of bad news stories about the legal fees he made from local governments during his years as a Senator, Zane dropped out of the race.  Sweeney won re-election by 4,353 votes, 54%-46%, against replacement candidate Phil Rhudy.

Burzichelli spent twenty years in the Assembly and chaired the Appropriations Committee.    He faced several challenging re-election campaigns but won them all until a mini-GOP wave caused him to lose his seat in 2021.

Some Burzichelli trivia: his late father, John D. Burzichelli, was a Republican mayor of and councilman in Paulsboro.  He lost re-election to Democrat James Sabetta by 138 votes in 1991; four years later, his son avenged the loss by defeating Sabetta.   He later switched parties.