Pat Sebold won’t seek re-election as Essex County Commissioner

Patricia Sebold, one of the longest-serving county commissioners in the state and the longest-serving in Essex County history, will not seek re-election to a twelfth term this year.

Sebold has also been elected to the Essex County Board of Commissioners ten times – she set the record for the most votes ever received by a county commissioner when she was re-elected in 2020 – and ranks third as the all-time highest vote-getter of any county commissioner in New Jersey history.

A longtime Democratic insider – she will celebrate her 50th year as the Livingston Democratic Municipal Chair in June – Sebold is a staunch ally of County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo.

Sebold played a key role in stopping then-County Executive James Treffinger from closing the Turtle Back Zoo.  She brought DiVincenzo, then the freeholder board president, to the zoo and helped convince him to become a lifelong supporter of what has become a crown jewel of the county’s economic development system.

In county government, Sebold was a longtime advocate of open space preservation and the expansion of the county park system.  She sponsored the first Open Space Trust Fund ordinance, pushed for expanding public golf courses, and backed initiatives to maintain county roads.

Sebold supported measures to repair Essex County’s bond rating and opposed an arrangement to lease space in the county jail to ICE for the detention of immigrants.

She was the top vote-getter on the at-large county commissioner ticket in the last two elections, and easily won general elections in Essex, where Republicans have not won an at-large seat since 1971.

Sebold was appointed in 1993 after Freeholder Linda Lordi Cavanaugh resigned to run the New Jersey Educational Facilities Authority.  She won a hotly contested Democratic primary that year on a slate that included DiVincenzo.  One of the unsuccessful candidates in that race was Sheila Oliver, later the Lt. Governor of New Jersey.

Her first political victory came in 1970, when Sebold mounted an off-the-line run for the Livingston Democratic County Committee.  Under the “Concerned Democrat” slogan, she besieged organization candidate Rose Vallella with 74% of the vote, 166 to 58.

Two years later, Sebold’s late husband, Burton, joined her on the Democratic ticket and became her longtime running mate.

Also in 1972, Sebold became involved in George McGovern’s bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.  While an organization slate of candidates opposed to McGovern and still pushing to nominate Hubert Humphrey won 14 of 15 Essex County delegate slots, Livingston went 2-1 for McGovern.

In 1973, Sebold backed Livingston attorney Donald Coburn, who ran off the organization line for the State Senate.  Coburn lost the primary to Roseland councilman Joel Wasserman, and Livingston went for Wasserman by 738 votes, a 70-%-30% margin.

With Sebold playing an active role, Democrats won control three seats on the Livingston Township Council in November 1974 and have held majority control for 48 of the last 50 years.

Her political influence increased exponentially when she played a major role in electing the first Essex County Executive.  Sebold backed 26-year-old Assemblyman Peter Shapiro (D-South Orange), who carried all 21 of Livingston’s voting districts with a 70%-24% win against the candidate backed by the Essex County Democratic organization, Sheriff John Cryan.  Livingston delivered Shapiro a 1,245-vote plurality.  Shapiro beat Cryan in the Democratic primary by just 2,147 votes countywide.

Sebold narrowly lost a general election for freeholder to Republican incumbent Monroe Jay Lustbader in 1984, and a close race for the State Assembly in 2001 when State Sen. Richard J. Codey chose to run off the line with his own candidates.

The retired West Orange High School English teacher – she taught Arizona U.S. Senator and potential presidential candidate Mark Kelly — has served as a delegate to several Democratic National Conventions, including 1980 when she ran on a slate pledged to Edward M. Kennedy in his bid to unseat Jimmy Carter in the primary election.  She also served on the Essex County Board of Elections and the Essex County Vocational and Technical Board of Education.

The longest-serving county commissioner in the state is Jeff Nash, who took office as a Camden County Freeholder in 1992.