Linda Lordi Cavanaugh

Mims Hackett's successor will become Richard Codey's eleventh running mate since Codey first went to Trenton as a 27-year-old Assemblyman in 1973.  In that race, Codey was the newcomer on a slate that included Frank "Pat" Dodd, who won re-election to a second term in the State Senate (he became Senate President after Democrats took control in 1973, and freshman Assemblyman Eldridge Hawkins.  When Hawkins unsuccessfully challenged Dodd in the 1977 Democratic primary (Tennis great Althea Gibson was the third candidate in that race), Mildred Barry Garvin, an East Orange school board member, went to the Assembly.

Yesterday was not the first time Mims Hackett saw the inside of a courtroom. In the 1970’s, he was sentence to thirty years in a state prison following his conviction on assault and kidnapping charges.

In August 1975, Hackett, a school teacher and community activist, was accused of kidnapping Larry Moss from the front porch of his Orange home and hitting him with a gun after questioning him about neighborhood break-ins.

The two-party system in Essex and Mercer county governments came to a close this week, with Democrats taking over the last GOP posts. Democrat Linda Lordi Cavanaugh was sworn in an Essex County Freeholder after defeating incumbent Muriel Shore in the November general election. Cavanaugh won a district Freeholder seat that had been under Republican control since Monroe Jay Lustbader ousted Renee Lane in 1981. The new Mercer County Clerk is Paula Sollami-Covello, who narrowly defeated two-term incumbent Catherine DiCostanzo.

In Essex, Democrats now have a 9-0 majority on the Freeholder Board (there has been two Republican Freeholders as recently as 2002), and control every constitutional office. Democrat Joseph DiVincenzo looks like a strong bet for re-election as County Executive in 2006; the GOP held this post from 1995 to 2003. With the retirement of Assemblyman Paul DiGaetano, Essex Republicans will have just one office above the municipal level: Assemblyman Kevin O'Toole.

In Mercer, Democrats have a 7-0 majority on the Freeholder Board and control every constitutional office. The County Clerk's job had been under GOP control for twenty years.