N.J. Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa speaking to the media after Governor Christie named him to fill Frank Lautenberg’s Senate seat. (CHRIS PEDOTA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
With Governor Christie’s pick for Frank Lautenberg’s vacant Senate seat not running for the late Democrat’s unexpired term, Jeffrey Chiesa will serve only 129 days in office before the Oct. 16 special election.
The Attorney General, who will leave his post Monday when he joins the Senate, will have the fourth-shortest Senate stint since New Jersey became a state, according to a report by Smart Politics, a non-partisan political news site run by Dr. Eric Ostermeier at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs.
Lautenberg was the state’s longest serving U.S. Senator with 10,388 days — more than 28 years — of service during two separate periods representing the state. Second behind him is Republican Clifford Case, who served four full terms — or 8,767 days, according to the report.
The shortest term was served by Democrat James Wall, who was in office for 49 days in 1863. Wall was elected to fill the vacant seat created by the dead of Democrat John Thompson. But Wall, a former Burlington mayor, failed to be re-elected, according to the report.
The second shortest term is also from the filling of Thompson’s vacant seat. Republican Richard Field served 55 days from Nov. 21, 1982 to Jan. 14, 1863 after he was appointed to fill Thompson’s seat. He was succeeded by Wall. Field had been an assemblyman and attorney general. He went on to become a judge in United States District Court, according to the report.
The third shortest term was served by Federalist Franklin Davenport, who was in office for 89 days from Dec. 5, 1798 to March 3, 1799. He was appointed to fill John Rutherford’s seat after his resignation.
The report found that the average length of service across the more than five dozen people to represent New Jersey in the U.S. Senate is 2,503 days, just shy of seven years.
Smart Politics analysis found that Chiesa’s decision to serve as a placeholder and not run for the remainder of Lautenberg’s term is an unusual one. Of the 190 senators appointed to their seats since 1913, only 70 of them chose not to run for the office, the report found.
Of those that did run, 23 appointees lost their party’s nomination, another 34 lost in the general or special election and only 63 won both their party’s nomination and the subsequent election.
