Loretta Weinberg
Loretta Weinberg was born in 1935 in New York City. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a B.A. in History; married Irwin Weinberg in 1961, and had two young children by the time she moved to Teaneck, New Jersey, in 1964. "It was a period of time," she recalls, "when political activity was all around me. The anti-war movement, the women's rights movement … I barely unpacked my dishes and went off to the local advocate headquarters!"
A photo housed on the website of Weinberg's Legacy Fund with the Rutgers Eagleton Institute's Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) shows the senator with her then six-year-old daughter holding a sign outside a grocery store that read "Don't eat grapes while grape pickers go hungry!" But it was a local issue—the need for shade trees in the areas of town where women walked with their babies in strollers—that drew her into the local council meeting that started it all. From there, she says, one thing led to another. "There are some dishes I never got around to unpacking," she says with her characteristic sense of humor.
"Her story is one of a mother and a member of a community who wanted to make a difference and cared about issues—whether it was issues right in her own town … [or] national issues like workers' rights for farmworkers," says Deborah Walsh, Director of CAWP. In addition to setting up a legacy fund, Weinberg volunteers her time there to help train women to campaign for elected office through CAWP's "Ready to Run" non-partisan program. "You never wonder where she stands, and that sometimes makes people unhappy, but she doesn't worry about that. She is about fixing the problem; she is about speaking the truth; standing up for what she believes in."
Weinberg stepped up her level of political involvement in 1974 by volunteering to work on the campaign of Jerry O'Connor, a freeholder that she has described as her "political mentor." She became Assistant Administrator of Bergen County (1975-1985) and, in 1990, was elected to Teaneck Council. In 1992, she was chosen by Democratic committee members to fill the Assembly seat for the 37th Legislative District, vacated by D. Bennett Mazur's resignation. She served in the General Assembly until 2005, holding the positions of Assistant Minority Leader (1994-95), Deputy Minority Leader (1996-2001), and Majority Conference Leader (2002-2005). She was elected to the New Jersey State Senate in November 2005, where she has served as vice-chair of the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee and the State Government Committee. She is currently the senate majority leader and serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Senator Weinberg has worked tirelessly on behalf of people in need and become known as someone who is fearless and focused on getting things done—whether that meant speaking truth to power, as in the 2013 Bridgegate scandal, or reaching across the aisle to partner with female Republican legislators on issues of mutual concern. Examples of such bipartisan initiatives include the 48-hour bill—requiring insurers to cover hospital stays for women and their new babies for at least 48 hours after delivery, which was sponsored by Weinberg and Assemblywoman Rose Heck (Republican, District 38) and passed in 1995; and the Diane B. Allen Equal Pay Act, a bill that was co-sponsored by Senator Weinberg and Senator Diane Allen (Republican, 7th District) and signed into law by Governor Phil Murphy in April 2018. The law amends the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination to provide enhanced equal pay protections for New Jersey employees.
Weinberg was a member of the New Jersey Supreme Court Ad Hoc Committee on Domestic Violence from 2015 to 2017. She created the Governor's Advisory Council on Adolescent Pregnancy; shaped a landmark autism research funding bill that gives $1 from every New Jersey traffic violation to autism research, and sponsored numerous gun-violence-prevention measures. She has been in the lead on every LGBT advancement in New Jersey throughout her legislative career, including marriage equality, transgender equality, and sweeping anti-discrimination and anti-hate crimes laws. The list goes on, but advocating for women is perhaps the most consistent theme throughout Weinberg's life and career.
In addition to her many legislative accomplishments on behalf of women, Senator Weinberg publishes an annual "Women's Power List" to recognize New Jersey women who have achieved power and influence in both the public and private sector. She has started a legacy fund at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers' Eagleton Institute to encourage young women to get involved in politics, and speaks regularly for the Center's "Ready to Run" program—a non-partisan campaign training program for women. She is "somebody who has been about making sure that there are more women following in her footsteps," says Walsh. "She is about fixing the problem. She is about speaking the truth; standing up for the things she believes in. … No matter what the issue—issues that affect women, families, children, civil rights, human rights in the state of New Jersey—she's always that voice."
When it came to funding for Legal Services, Loretta always fought for the program, says Deborah Poritz, former New Jersey Supreme Court Chief Justice and LSNJ Board Chair. "It was a piece of hope that we took with us from Loretta."
Poritz and Weinberg share a special friendship—New York women of the same generation, who pursued careers in male-dominated fields and have bonded over their shared experience of being proud Jewish grandmothers. "She's a woman of great energy and she brings that energy to everything that she does," says Poritz. "I'm in awe of that kind of energy." Reflecting on Senator Weinberg's many contributions to equal justice, Poritz shares one of the things about her friend that she finds unique.
I've had conversations with Senator Weinberg about public service and what public life means; how important it is. How important what you do can be to so many people. And she said to me, Getting accolades for whatever it is you do … that's wonderful and I'm proud of that. But, really, I think of what I've been able to do as a privilege and as an adventure. I have the privilege of being able to do this for people, and I have the adventure of seeing it through and making it work. That's what's been important to me.