Anne Clark Martindell - Political Career

Political Career

Martindell was already in her fifties when she became active in Democratic politics. Her brother Blair Clark was the national campaign director for Eugene McCarthy in the 1968 presidential campaign. She attended the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago to show support for McCarthy, as well as for New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Robert B. Meyner, a friend of the family. After the convention, Meyner asked Martindell to become vice chair of the New Jersey Democratic State Committee. At the end of her four-year appointment, local Democrats encouraged Martindell to run for New Jersey Senate in 1973 in a traditionally Republican district encompassing parts of Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex and Morris Counties. She managed to beat incumbent State Sen. William E. Schluter in a year when Republicans battled the specter of the Watergate scandal and Democrats were buoyed by the landslide victory of Brendan Byrne as Governor of New Jersey.

In her four years in the State Senate, Martindell worked primarily on women's issues, education, and the environment. She served as chair of the Education Committee, member of the Appropriations Committee, chair of the Budget Revision Subcommittee for Higher Education, chair of the Joint State Library Committee, member of the Senate Nursing Home Commission, and chair of the Committee to Defeat Casino Gambling. Martindell was a delegate for Jimmy Carter at the 1976 Democratic National Convention and was an active campaigner for Carter in New Jersey. When Carter was elected president, Martindell resigned from the New Jersey Senate in 1977 to take a series of federal appointments. She was succeeded in the Senate by Walter E. Foran, then serving in the New Jersey General Assembly.