Former Assemblywoman BettyLou DeCroce reflects on primary loss, party politics and more – NorthJersey.com

PARSIPPANY — Sitting in her kitchen about a week after her final legislative session in Trenton, BettyLou DeCroce pondered her political future while remembering where it all began.

The politics gene skipped a generation in her family, going from grandparents, Edward and Lulu Gleckler down to her.

“I was raised around politics in Rockaway Borough,” said DeCroce, who lost her 26th District Assembly seat in last year’s GOP primary. “My grandmother was county committee chair and Republican Club chair for 35 years. My grandfather was a councilman in Rockaway for 30 years.”

The politics gene also skipped most of her generation as well.

“I was the only one of their 10 grandchildren who would go out on campaigns and knock on doors with my grandfather,” she said. “When I was 18, my grandmother signed me up to work the polls.”

DeCroce, 63, admits the primary loss was a hard blow to absorb and still harbors resentment for a few Morris County Republican Committee leaders she said tried to discredit her. But anyone who thinks her political career is over may be in for a surprise.

“Government is what I do,” she said. “Government is what I love, what I know best. I know it inside and out.”

DeCroce also had early success in the private sector. Even at age 20 and as the mother of two children, she ran her own roofing business before surprising herself by winning a seat on the council in her native Mine Hill in 1981.

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“No one helped me,” she recalled. “I did my own campaign, set up my own campaign account, did my own brochures. I loaded the car with my kids to go door to door.”

A move to Roxbury ended her first chapter of elected office, but Roxbury leaders quickly tapped her talents, first with an appointment to the planning board and then an invitation to take over as township clerk, and later as deputy manager. She stayed there for 21 years.

Love and politics

Along the way, she met Alex DeCroce, who was running for Morris County Freeholder. She was campaigning for an opposing candidate, but politics eventually took a back seat.

“We just met and went out for a cup of coffee,” she said. “We didn’t get serious for quite a while.”

They married in 1994. By then Alex DeCroce had gone from the freeholder board to the New Jersey Assembly in 1989, where he rose to Republican leader in 2003. BettyLou DeCroce was recruited in 2010 by incoming Gov. Chris Christie, also a former Morris freeholder, to become deputy commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs.

Alex DeCroce’s sudden death, at the New Jersey Statehouse in January 2012 just after the 214th Legislature completed its final session, shocked the New Jersey landscape, He was 75.

She teared up as she recounted that night, being at home and preparing to arrive in Trenton the next day to be with her husband as he was sworn into another term.

“I talked to him the night before,” DeCroce said. “Alex never complained, but he told me he didn’t feel well. I told him not to stay up late and don’t let them wake you up early. I texted his staff and told them our guy wasn’t feeling well, and to watch out for him. But they didn’t get it because they were in the Statehouse.”

By the time they got the texts, it was too late. He was found collapsed in the Statehouse bathroom. Efforts to revive him were unsuccessful.

“At two in the morning, two guys came to my house from the governor’s office,” she said. Her son, Paul arrived about the same time, already devastated by the news.

“I just collapsed on the floor,” she said. “They tell me I was there for about 20 minutes. Then the reporters started coming. TV trucks. The house started filling up with people.”

Barely off the floor, she was told that Christie would suspend his scheduled State of the State address later that day to instead eulogize her husband, and she needed to be there with her sons.

“They told me ‘the Statehouse was broken and you’re the only one who can show the strength to face it.’ That was posed to me at 3 in the morning after my husband died.”

She answered the call, wearing a bright pink pants suit her husband had just bought her for Christmas because he thought she “would look good in it.” Her sentimental fashion choice drew criticism and sniping comments from the political opposition.

“The person who stood up for me that day was Sheila Oliver,” DeCroce said, referring to the then-Democratic Assembly Speaker who is now in her second term as lieutenant governor under Phil Murphy. “She really loved Alex. She put a stop to that garbage right then and there.”

DeCroce barely had time to mourn when confronted with another difficult decision: whether to run for her husband’s Assembly seat. They gave her two days to decide.

“Alex always told me the plan was for him to retire and for me to run,” she said to party leaders pressing for an answer. “But not like this.”

Despite the prospect of losing her husband’s income and giving up a $150,000 annual DCA salary, DeCroce opted to run. She won the seat and the $48,000 salary it came with.

“I did with the thought that my husband would want me to,” DeCroce said. “That he would want me to carry on his beliefs, which were the same as mine. Fiscally conservative, and moderate when it comes to social issues. I’m sure with the times in this district, he would be moving more to the middle because that’s where the district is going to.”

Party conflict

Like many Republicans in recent years, party members taking the moderate path have opened themselves to criticism and opposition from conservative supporters of former President Donald Trump.

DeCroce said she managed to navigate those waters, but blames some members of the Morris County Republican Committee for attempting to discredit her for more “personal reasons.”

DeCroce said committee chair Laura Ali actively attempted to discredit her after she would not support the committee’s new county line proposal to top the primary ballot’s top line with its endorsed candidates.

She also claims Ali, committee vice-chair Louis Valori and attorney Peter King were “angry” after her son, Paul, declined an invitation to run for Parsippany council last year on a ticket with Valori, who was running for mayor.

She said despite being designated for the top bracket of the primary by the secretary of state, along with fellow incumbent Jay Webber, Ali denied her the line.

Former Pompton Lakes Councilman Christian Barranco ended up sharing the top of the ballot with Webber, at least in the Morris County portion of the district, which includes portions of Essex and Passaic counties, where the GOP committees did endorse her.

She won the primary vote in Essex and Passaic, but lost Morris County and the primary election, finishing third. Webber later bracketed with Barranco and they finished first and second, respectively. DeCroce finished third.

“Flatly I lost,” she said. “Only a small percentage of people came out, probably in part because of COVID. But I can’t help but feel if it were regular times, and we didn’t have the party line, I’d still be in the Legislature.”

“I wish her well and thank her for her service,” Ali said. “She just lost. I had nothing to do with it. I have always liked her, but since she lost, she’s gone off the rails a little bit blaming me.”

Valori also wished her well and said he revered her husband, adding he spent five years as a legislative aide in Alex DeCroce’s office. He also denied recruiting her son, Paul, to run with him.

“I never had a conversation with BettyLou or her son abut running with me,” said Valori, who lost his primary bid for the Parsippany mayor’s office to James Barberio. “I don’t know who would have even suggested that. If anything, when she was running, I told her she had to be much more involved with the committee because she had no idea who were the committee people in our town.”

“Sometimes people just lose,” Ali said. “Not because somebody was out to get them. There’s no drama behind the curtain.”

What’s next?

Proud of her accomplishments, DeCroce has not ruled out running to reclaim her seat in 2023.

She cited highlights of her Statehouse service, including the 2012 update of New Jersey’s 1985 Crime Victims Bill of Rights that was named in her husband’s honor.

Other memorable accomplishments included advocating for children with disabilities and facilitating transportation issues such as the dredging of New Jersey ports and other measures to accommodate modern supersize freighters.

Will she run again?

She will wait to see how the district is redrawn before deciding whether to run for her old seat in 2023.

“The greatest thing of all for me was working with the constituents, working with the mayors, helping make a difference in the community,” DeCroce said.

William Westhoven is a local reporter for DailyRecord.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: wwesthoven@dailyrecord.com Twitter: @wwesthoven