Albohn beat Totaro, Maraziti

Arthur Albohn, who passed away on Sunday at the age of 86, was the last person to defeat an incumbent member of the State Assembly in a Morris County general election.  He did it in 1979, when he ousted Democrat Rosemarie Totaro by 3,088 votes.  (The last person to defeat an incumbent State Senator in Morris County was Anthony Bucco, who unseated Gordon MacInnes in 1997.  MacInnes had beaten John Dorsey four years earlier. 

Totaro had served two terms in the State Assembly.  She was elected in the Democratic landslide of 1973, along with MacInnes; both lost their seats in 1975, losing to Dorsey and James Barry.  Totaro came back to reclaim an Assembly seat in 1977 (when Dorsey ran against another Democrat, State Senator Stephen Wiley) and narrowly defeated Republican Joseph Maraziti.

Maraziti was a venerable figure in Morris County politics.  He began his political career in 1932, at age 19, as an aide to State Senator David Young.  After serving as an Assistant Morris County Prosecutor and Boonton Municipal Court Judge, Maraziti was elected to the State Assembly in 1957 and to the State Senate in 1967.  He briefly entered the race for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination in 1970 against incumbent Harrison Williams, and was serving as Senate Majority Whip in 1972 when he congressional redistricting panel he chaired eliminated a Democratic House seat in Hudson County and created one for the GOP in Morris County and northwestern New Jersey.  Maraziti won the seat, defeating Helen Stevenson Meyner, the wife of former Governor Robert Meyner.

Maraziti lasted just two years.  He had won a seat on the House Judiciary Committee, where he became a defender of President Richard Nixon during the Watergate hearings.  He also had his own ethics problems after published reports alleged that he gave a no-show job to a woman with whom he had a less than professional relationship.  Maraziti was also named one of New Times magazine’s Ten Dumbest Congressmen.  Meyner beat him 57%-43% in this solidly GOP district in 1974.

Maraziti attempted another comeback as a State Assembly candidate in 1979, but was beaten in the GOP primary by Albohn.