Bret Schundler
Bret D. Schundler (born January 14, 1959 in Colonia, New Jersey) is an American Republican Party politician from the U.S. state of New Jersey. He was the mayor of Jersey City from 1992 until 2001. He was the unsuccessful Republican nominee for Governor of New Jersey in 2001 and he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 2005.
Pre-Political career
Schundler grew up in Woodbridge Township and Westfield, New Jersey as the youngest of nine children. In high school, he was an All-State football player. He was recruited by Harvard University, where, to help pay for his tuition, he washed dishes, cleaned bathrooms, and worked as a security guard. He graduated with honors in 1981. Schundler's ethnic heritage is German and Barbadian.
Following his graduation from college, Schundler worked for liberal Democratic Congressman Roy Dyson of Maryland. He later worked for Gary Hart's 1984 presidential campaign. After Hart lost the primary, Schundler began his career in finance in the sales department of Salomon Brothers. While he had no experience in the field, his interviewer thought that anyone who could sell Hart in western Iowa had a future in finance. In 1987, he moved to a different firm, C. J. Lawrence, which has since been absorbed into Deutsche Bank. He retired in 1990, and after traveling around the world for a year, changed his registration to Republican. Unlike most New Jersey Republicans, he soon became very conservative.
Mayor of Jersey City
His first run for elective office was an unsuccessful campaign for the New Jersey Senate in 1991, where despite the partisan nature of the election and the overwhelmingly Democratic composition of the district (only 6% of voters were registered Republicans), Schundler received 46% of the vote. The next year, Gerald McCann was removed as mayor of Jersey City because of a criminal conviction unrelated to his public duties, and Schundler entered the special election to finish the remaining eight months of McCann's term.
On paper, Schundler faced nearly impossible odds. At the time, Republicans only counted for 6 percent of Jersey City's registered voters, and a Republican had not made a serious bid for mayor in decades. However, with 19 candidates (including 17 Democrats) splitting the vote, Schundler won by a narrow margin to become the first Republican mayor of Jersey City since 1917.
Once in the office, Schundler quickly gained an unshakable reputation for honesty that cut across party lines, and subsequently won a full term in 1993 with 69% of the vote –- the largest margin of victory since Jersey City returned to the Mayor-Council form of government in 1961, and according to some sources, in the city's entire history. He won a second full term almost as easily in 1997.
During his tenure as mayor, Schundler significantly lowered crime, lowered property taxes, increased the city's tax collection rate and property values, instituted medical savings accounts for city employees, privatized the management of the city's water utility and library, and led the fight to pass New Jersey's charter school legislation. Moreover, according to a Harvard University study[1], during his tenure Jersey City led the 100 largest cities in America in job growth and poverty reduction.
Schundler attracted considerable national attention because he was a conservative Republican in an overwhelmingly Democratic city. However, his image as a politician who couldn't be "bought off," combined with his innovative reforms, strongly resonated in a city with a long legacy of corruption dating to the days of Frank Hague. For example, he carried predominantly African American precincts by margins previously unheard of for a Republican during his two re-election campaigns.
Although Schundler won two landslide re-elections, no permanent swing to the Republican Party occurred in Jersey City. Jersey City has been a Democratic stronghold for over a century, with Democrats dominating every level of government. Indeed, on the same night as Schundler's special election win, Bill Clinton carried Hudson County (which includes Jersey City) by an overwhelming margin, which was enough to swing New Jersey into the Democratic column for the first time since 1964. Clinton carried Hudson County by an even larger margin in 1996. Additionally, no Republican has represented a significant portion of Jersey City in Congress in over a century, and Schundler was succeeded by a Democrat, Glenn Cunningham, in 2001.
2001 gubernatorial campaign
Towards the end of his tenure as mayor, Schundler served as chairman of the Hudson County Republican Committee, and in 2001, Schundler won the Republican gubernatorial nomination, facing former Congressman Bob Franks, a considerably more moderate Republican who was favored by the party establishment. Franks entered the race in April, two months before the primary, after Gov. Donald DiFrancesco dropped out of the race because of an unending series of newspaper stories highlighting ethics concerns. He was backed by Gov. DiFrancesco's political organization and endorsed by every county Republican committee except Schundler's base in Hudson County.
Schundler employed a more grassroots style of campaigning, visiting many local GOP organizations and forming close relationships with the Young Republicans and the College Republicans, as well as with conservative groups, including those active in homeschooling issues. The grassroots support he built up enabled him to win the nomination by a robust 15-point margin.
After winning the primary, Schundler tried to reunite the party by reaching out to the figures who had endorsed Franks. This included having a unity lunch with Franks which was hosted by former Gov. Tom Kean, and retaining New Jersey State Senator Joseph M. Kyrillos as state party chairman. Kyrillos had been appointed by DiFrancesco as state party chairman six weeks before the primary, and he had supported Franks in the primary. However, the party remained split. The Democratic candidate, Woodbridge Township Mayor Jim McGreevey (the unsuccessful Democratic candidate in 1997), exploited this division by painting Schundler as too conservative for New Jersey. In the November election, Schundler was badly defeated, gaining 42% of the vote to McGreevey's 56%. He even lost Hudson County by 50,000 votes.
Schundler did not run for office again until the 2005 gubernatorial campaign, but remained as one of the most visible spokesmen for conservative Republicans in New Jersey.
2005 gubernatorial campaign
Schundler's 2005 gubernatorial campaign focused on the issue of property taxes. He proposed a series of state constitutional amendments to control state and local spending in New Jersey, with the savings dedicated to property tax reduction statewide.
As in 2001, Schundler focused mostly on grassroots campaigning. However, he also targeted Republican County Conventions to spread his message and won several county endorsements, including in Monmouth, Hunterdon, and Somerset counties as well as his base in Hudson County.
In the week before the primary election, Schundler's campaign was criticized for using a photograph on its website that showed Schundler apparently standing with a crowd of enthusiastic young supporters. The photograph, which appeared for only a few days on a web page advertising campaign t-shirts and mugs, had actually been taken at a Howard Dean rally in 2004, with Dean's image digitally replaced by Schundler's and with campaign signs, hats, and shirts modified as well. [2]Schundler's campaign responded that the photograph had been prepared by the campaign's website contractor (which had done work for the Dean campaign), and that the campaign had had the picture taken down when it learned of the miscue.
Schundler lost the primary to Doug Forrester, who had been New Jersey's Republican nominee for United States Senate in 2002, and who had been a former mayor of West Windsor, former assistant state treasurer, and former state pensions director, before becoming a wealthy businessperson, enabling him to outspend Schundler during the campaign by about 6-1. The results were:
- Forrester: 35%
- Schundler: 31%
- Morris County Freeholder John Murphy: 11%
- Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan: 8%
- Washington Township Councilman Bob Schroeder: 6%
- Assemblyman Paul DiGaetano: 6%
- Former Bergen County Freeholder Todd Caliguire: 3%
Schundler carried Union, Hudson, Hunterdon and Somerset counties. He had the county line in Somerset and Hudson and shared it with Forrester in Hunterdon. Forrester held the county line in Union County, which was the only county where he had the line but still lost in the primary.
Current activities and family
Schundler is currently (as of 2007) the Managing Partner of People Power America, LLC, which licenses TeamVolunteer, an online utility that helps political campaigns and non-profit organizations coordinate phone banks. Additionally, in January 2007, Schundler took a teaching position at The King's College, a rigorous academic institution located in the Empire State Building. Schundler, known for his excellent writing ability, teaches argumentation and rhetoric, and is the Director of The Policy Center at The King's Collge
Schundler and his wife, Lynn, have two children, a daughter named Shaylin and a son named Hans Otto III. They live in Jersey City.
References
External links
- Official Campaign web site
- "Bret Schundler's Milestones" - campaign biography
- Empower the People website