Senate Democrats once tossed the rebel from their caucus
David Wildstein reports for New Jersey Globe
Alene Ammond, known as the “Terror of Trenton” during her four years representing Camden County in the New Jersey State Senate, has died. She was 86.
Ammond, a 40-year-old Cherry Hill activist, was elected to the Senate in 1973 to represent the 6th district.
Senate Democrats didn’t like her because she talked to the press too much, often revealing what senators said in the closed-door caucus.
Ammond started out as part of an organization called the Cherry Hill League, a watchdog group that one local official referred to as a “nit-picking body.” Her partner in that group was Rose Marie Hospodor, who would someday become Pallone’s mother-in-law. In 1967, Ammond ran for Cherry Hill councilwoman and finished 11th in a field of 12 candidates.
In 1973, two factions of the Camden County Democrats were at war. Cherry Hill Democratic Municipal Chairman Jack Gasparre was preparing to challenge County Chairman James Joyce, and both put up opposing slates in the June primary. Camden Mayor Angelo Errichetti was part of the Gasparre faction.
Joyce backed Ammond for State Senate, while Gasparre’s candidate was 33-year-old Jack Jehl, a former assistant Camden County prosecutor who was then the Voorhees solicitor.
The Republican incumbent, John Miller (R-Cherry Hill), was seeking his third term in the State Senate. The newly-drawn 6th district appeared solidly Republican in the early in those days; it included suburban Camden County towns, as well as Evesham and Palmyra in Burlington County. Noteworthy is that the incumbent Governor, William Cahill, and former Gov. Alfred Driscoll both lived in the 6th.
Still, Miller had his own political problems. His running mate, Assemblyman William Dickey, a former Assembly Speaker, had tried to dump Miller and get the Senate nomination for himself.
Ammond defeated Jehl by 504 votes, 53%-47%. Her two Assembly running mates, Mary Keating Croce, the sister of the county clerk, and 28-year-old Jack Gallagher, also won the primary – Gallagher by 286 votes.
The general election came not long after the Saturday Night Massacre, when Richard Nixon fired Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox. 1973 was a blowout year for Democrats, winning 30 Senate seats and 66 Assembly seats.
Ammond beat Miller by 3,248 votes, 53%-47%. Keating Croce and Gallagher ousted Dickey and incumbent Eugene Raymond.
Just a few weeks after joining the Senate, Ammond had already gone off the reservation. She charged Senate President Frank Dodd had a personal conflict of interest in the creation of an energy study commission because he wanted to skew the results.
Ammond got into a fight with Joyce over fundraiser. The county chairman brought in U.S. Senator Henry Jackson and Gov. Brendan Byrne for a fundraising to pay off Ammond’s campaign debts. By February, Ammond had accused Joyce of trying to pocket the money and asked that all proceeds go to her campaign directly
The deal, Joyce said at the time, is that she would sell 200 tickets for $50 each. He said that Ammond barely sold any, and the ones she did sell were at cost ($16). He refused to give her any money.
Ammond also took issue with a fundraising letter Joyce sent out saying that he secured a seat for her on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
By March, she was in the middle of a probe by Camden County Prosecutor Thomas Shusted over petitions filed by her Cherry Hill change of government petition she backed in 1972.
When Camden Democrats wanted freeholder Thomas Higgins to replace Shusted as county prosecutor, Ammond used her senatorial courtesy to block him. She also blocked Democratic appointments to the Delaware River Port Authority. Ammond called on the State Commission of Investigation (SCI) to investigate the deal Joyce made to get Higgins named prosecutor. Higgins wound up withdrawing.
She tried to open the caucus to the press.
By January 1975, Senate Democrats had enough. Ammond was barred from attending the Democratic caucus. They stripped her of her senatorial courtesy. She was removed from the Judiciary Committee. And they launched an internal probe into her conduct as a senator.
Dodd said that all Ammond did was try to grab headlines. She said the senators were retaliating against her because she was a reformer. Ammond said that she felt physically threatened by State Sen. William Vincent Musto (D-Union City).
