Michael J. Doherty - Elected Office

Elected Office

Board of Chosen Freeholders: Doherty served for a period on the Warren County Board of Chosen Freeholders. In 2000, Doherty defeated the incumbent Freeholder Director, a Democrat, to capture control of the Freeholder Board for the Republican Party. In 2001, he served as Deputy Director of the Freeholder Board. He was elected to serve as the Director of the Freeholder Board in both 2002 and 2003. During his three years on the Freeholder Board, Doherty cut the county tax rate by 21%. Doherty also began a program to reduce the county debt so that today Warren County has the lowest debt of any county in the state. He also prevailed in a showdown with a Superior Court judge who threatened to jail Doherty unless he issued $5 million in bonds to fund an expansion of the local county college. The showdown was eventually decided by the New Jersey Supreme Court, which sided with Doherty and held that the Freeholder Board was correct to ignore the judge's order.

General Assembly: Doherty was elected to the New Jersey General Assembly in 2001, and was re-elected in 2003, 2005 and 2007. He served in the Assembly on the Appropriations Committee and the Labor Committee. Early in his Assembly career, he served on the Agriculture Committee, the Housing and the Local Government Committee, and the State House Commission.

State Senate: In November 2008, Doherty announced his intention to run for the State Senate seat vacated by Leonard Lance, who was elected to represent the 7th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. Doherty's opponent in the race was Assemblywoman Marcia A. Karrow. Hunterdon County Freeholder Matt Holt originally planned to run for the vacancy as well, but he dropped out to run for one of the Assembly vacancies opened up by Karrow or Doherty. On January 24, 2009, a special election was held by a convention of Republican committee members from Hunterdon and Warren counties. Karrow defeated Doherty in the special election by a margin of 195 votes to 143. Doherty announced that he would run against Karrow a second time in the June 2009 primary, when she would be running as the incumbent. Doherty gave up his Assembly seat by opposing Karrow in the primary. On June 2, 2009, Doherty defeated Karrow in the Republican Senate primary by a margin of 52%-48%. He defeated the Democratic candidate Harvey Baron in a special election on November 3, 2009, to fill the remaining two years of the Senate term, garnering 71% of the vote. He was first sworn into his Senate seat on November 23, 2009. In the Senate, Doherty currently serves on the Education Committee and the Judiciary Committee. Doherty was re-elected to the Senate in November 2011.