Saturday, September 29, 2018
Frank Herbert was one of the most dynamic and refreshing first-time legislators to arrive in the New Jersey Senate after the 1977 elections, at least in my view (I was executive director to the body during his time there). He was, of course, an unusually conscientious lawmaker -- why is how this freshman remarkably became the sponsor of landmark legislation creating New Jersey Transit out of dozens of failing privately operated transportation lines. Yet he was also a person of broad cultural interests as well as political ones; he is the only senator to have asked me where he could find a classical music station on his radio dial in the Trenton area, as New York's WQXR faded out just before Princeton on his drive to the State House each session day.
Frank represented a district in up-market northern Bergen County that, in that era, was one of the most Republican in the state, and was zealously attentive to his constituents. Yet he never lost sight of the fact that his oath was to uphold the constitution and rights of all New Jerseyans. He was truly a bright, shining meteor across the sky of New Jersey politics. But that we had more like him today!
