Richard Hughes Archives - New Jersey Globe

Joe Biden’s heart wrenching story about a former N.J. governor

April 14, 2021 7:56 pmApril 15, 2021 12:03 pm

In his eulogy for fallen U.S. Capitol police officer Billy Evans on Tuesday, President Joe Biden shared a hugely personal story about former New Jersey Gov. Richard J. Hughes. Biden spoke of losing his wife and child in a car...

New Jersey governors and presidential primaries

February 15, 2021 12:13 amFebruary 14, 2021 7:02 pm

Gov. Phil Murphy was the first governor to stay out of the presidential race in 28 years, leaving Democratic county chairs — and in some cases, Democratic County Committee members — to award the organization line in the 2020 New...

Key moment for Nixon was when 18 New Jersey Republicans bolted from Case

February 15, 2021 12:12 amFebruary 13, 2021 6:27 pm

For some time, presidential primaries in New Jersey where nothing more than beauty contests where the preferred candidate of a voter was deemed so unimportant that their names did not appear on the ballot. Instead, voters had to wrote in...

Trailblazer: Marion West Higgins

February 9, 2021 12:14 amFebruary 7, 2021 9:10 pm

Marion West Higgins (1915-1991) was the first woman to serve as Speaker of the New Jersey State Assembly. The Bergen County Republican was also the first woman to serve as Assembly Majority Leader, and the first woman to serve as...

Trailblazer: Senator Hutchins Inge

January 18, 2021 12:13 amJanuary 17, 2021 11:30 pm

Hutchins Inge (1900-2002) was the first Black to serve in the New Jersey State Senate. A Newark physician, Inge was elected to the Senate in 1965, unseated Republican Senate Minority Leader C. Robert Sarcone by 7,144 votes. The opportunity for...

Trailblazer: Justice James J. Coleman

January 18, 2021 12:05 amJanuary 16, 2021 10:36 pm

James H. Coleman, Jr., 85, the son of a sharecropper who was forced to attend racially segregated public schools in Lawrenceville, was the first Black to serve on the New Jersey Supreme Court. Coleman joined the New Jersey Department of...

Trailblazer: Commissioner Horace Bryant, Sr.

January 18, 2021 12:02 amJanuary 16, 2021 10:20 pm

Horace Bryant, Jr. (1909-1983) was the first African American to serve in the cabinet of a New Jersey governor. Richard J. Hughes appointed him to serve as commissioner of Banking and Insurance in 1969. Bryant had spent over 40 years...