Dick Codey and the Freshman Assembly Class of 1973

Benjamin Danskin, the Monmouth County GOP Chairman at the time, called the 1973 election in New Jersey “a total rebellion and outrage on the part of the American people.”

The nation began learning about the Watergate scandal.   An incumbent governor lost the Republican primary after a series of scandals.  New Jersey moved to a 40-district legislative map for the first time, each with one senator and two Assembly seats.  Seventeen days before the election, President Nixon fired Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox in what became known as the Saturday Night Massacre.  Democrat Brendan Byrne was elected governor in a 2-1 landslide, and Democrats picked up both houses of the legislature for just the third time in the 20th century.  The Senate was 29 Democrats, ten Republicans, and one independent; the Assembly ended up with 66 Democrats and fourteen Republicans.

The youngest of the 43 freshmen members of the State Assembly elected in 1973 was Richard J. Codey, a 26-year-old funeral director from Orange who began a 50-year stint in Trenton that will come to an end when he retires in January.    Fifteen of the 43 freshmen were out of office after one term, four (including Codey), went to the Senate; some held other offices, one was killed in a car crash during his first term, and another went to prison for stealing air conditioners from the city he worked for.

Here’s a photo gallery of the men and women who entered the New Jersey Legislature on the same day as Codey on January 8, 1974:

If you’re too young to remember most of these faces, click HERE for a cheat sheet.