William E. Schluter

William Everett "Bill" Schluter is an American Republican Party politician from New Jersey, who served in both houses of the New Jersey Legislature.

Schluter was born on November 5, 1927 in Bronxville, New York to Frederic E. and Charlotte M. Schluter. He grew up in Lawrence Township, Mercer County, New Jersey and attended Phillips Exeter Academy and Princeton University. In 1950 he married Nancy Albright Hurd. They settled in Pennington, New Jersey.^[1]

Schluter was elected to the Pennington City Council in 1963 and served for six years. He was a delegate to the 1964 Republican National Convention. In 1967 he was elected to the New Jersey General Assembly and was reelected in 1969.^[2]

In 1971, in a newly reapportioned legislative district combining parts of Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex and Morris Counties, Schluter was elected to the New Jersey Senate. But Schluter lost the seat in 1973 to Anne Clark Martindell, as Democrats took control of the State Legislature in the wake of the Watergate scandal.^[3]

In 1976 Schluter ran for a seat in the United States House of Representatives against the Democratic incumbent, Helen Stevenson Meyner, who, like Martindell, had won in a Republican-leaning district in the aftermath of Watergate. In the hotly contested race, Meyner defeated Schluter by a narrow margin. In 1978 Schluter ran for the House seat again but lost in the Republican primary to Jim Courter, who went on to defeat Meyner in the general election.

Schluter returned to the New Jersey Legislature in 1987, when Dick Zimmer moved from the Assembly to the Senate following the death of Senator Walter E. Foran. Schluter won Zimmer's Assembly seat, and then continued on to the State Senate after Zimmer succeeded Courter in the House of Representatives in 1991.^[4] Schluter's Assembly seat was filled by Leonard Lance.

Schluter served in the State Senate until 2001, when he would have had to run against a fellow incumbent, Democratic Senator Shirley Turner, due to redistricting. Instead, he ran as an independent in the race for Governor of New Jersey, with the help of Doug Friedline, the former campaign manager of Governor Jesse Ventura of Minnesota. The relationship brought an endorsement from Gov. Jesse Ventura of Minnesota. However a few weeks later, on September 11, 2001 the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City caused an immediate cessation of political campaigning in New Jersey, and supporters diverted their otherwise campaign contributions to disaster relief organizations. This prevented Schulter from raising sufficient funds to qualify in the Gubernatorial televised debates. By the time the race restarted, Schluter lagged far behind Democrat Jim McGreevey and Republican Brett Schundler, and garnered only 1% of the vote.^[5][6]

Schluter was appointed to the State Ethics Commission in 2006 by Governor Jon Corzine. He is a resident of Pennington, New Jersey.^[7]

Currently Schluter is still somewhat active in NJ politics. He is the author of an upcoming book, Soft Corruption: How Unethical Conduct Undermines Good Government and What To Do About It, to be published in Spring 2017 by Rutgers University Press.^[8]

References