Nicholas J. Sacco (born November 17, 1946) is an American Democratic Party politician who served in the New JerseyState Senate from 1994 to 2024, where he represented the 32nd Legislative District. Sacco serveed as the chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee and was also a member of the Law and Public Safety and Veterans' Affairs Committee.[2] He has served as mayor of North Bergen since 1991, and was allowed to hold two offices under a grandfather clause in a bill that took effect in February 2008 that prohibits dual office holding. Sacco announced on February 24, 2022 that he would not seek re-election to the State Senate.[3]
Sacco was first elected to the North Bergen Board of Commissioners in 1985 as a part of recall elections headed up by Leo Gattoni to clean out corrupt officials in the Township. In 1991, Gattoni retired from the Mayor's office and decided to endorse Sacco as mayor (in North Bergen, the mayor is chosen among members of the Board of Commissioners).[6] Sacco has been reelected every four years, most recently in May 2019.[7] Two years after becoming mayor, Sacco defeated incumbent state senator Thomas F. Cowan in the Democratic primary election for the 32nd district.[8] He has also been overwhelmingly re-elected to this office since his first election.
In addition to serving as a state senator and mayor of North Bergen, Sacco served as the Director of Primary Education for the North Bergen School District until his retirement in 2017.[2][9] Sacco has been Principal of Horace Mann and Lincoln School in North Bergen, and former president and vice president of the North Bergen Council of Administrators and Supervisors which is affiliated with the New Jersey Education Association. He simultaneously holds a seat in the New Jersey Senate and as Mayor. This dual position, often called double dipping, is allowed under a grandfather clause in the state law enacted by the New Jersey Legislature and signed into law by Governor of New JerseyJon Corzine in September 2007 that prevents dual-office-holding but allows those who had held both positions as of February 1, 2008, to retain both posts.[10]
Sacco is a sponsor of the state's Urban Enterprise Zone legislation, which has helped foster private business investment in urban centers and generates millions of dollars in revenue for North Bergen and other cities.[11] Sacco has also sponsored legislation expanding the use of DNA testing in criminal cases, by having DNA collected from individuals convicted of disorderly conduct offenses that could be compared against databases to help close unsolved crime cases.[12] In 2021 Sacco voted in favor of legislation establishing a constitutional right to reproductive freedom.[13]
In 2012 the Hudson Reporter named him #1 in its list of Hudson County's 50 most influential people.[14] In 2013 and 2014, he was ranked #3 (the first of which tied him with Senate colleague and Union City mayor Brian P. Stack),[15][16] and #4 in 2015.[17]
On February 24, 2022, Sacco announced that he would not run for re-election as state senator in 2023, after North Bergen was redistricted to the 33rd Legislative District, which placed Sacco in the same district as his colleague, Union City mayor and state senator Brian Stack, whom Sacco said he would support.[3]
Each of the 40 districts in the New Jersey Legislature has one representative in the New Jersey Senate and two members in the New Jersey General Assembly.[18] Representatives from the 32nd District for the 2022—2023 Legislative Session are:[19]
On November 26, 2022, Sacco married his longtime girlfriend Kathryn Somick at a ceremony at the Venetian in Garfield, New Jersey. His brother Joseph served as best man and his grandson, Nathan, was the ring bearer.[1] Somick comes from a family with several members that work in the education system, and she herself worked with Sacco at the Board of Education.[23]
^Senator Nicholas J. SaccoArchived December 24, 2019, at the Wayback Machine, New Jersey Senate Democrats. Accessed August 29, 2019. "The senator was born in Jersey City Nov. 17, 1946. He attended public schools in Hudson County and graduated from Memorial High School in West New York."
^Hague, Jim (March 22, 2005). "North Bergen's UEZ has a new home Office set up on Broadway, in heart of zone"Archived April 15, 2014, at the Wayback Machine. Hudson Reporter. Accessed June 25, 2012. "Ever since North Bergen Mayor Nicholas Sacco first introduced legislation 10 years ago, in his role as a state senator, that began the process to have Urban Enterprise Zones (UEZ) in many of the state's major cities and towns as a way to increase business sales while helping to beautify the community, the North Bergen UEZ has been operating out of Town Hall, but was really without an identity."
^Adriana Rambay Fernández, Stephen LaMarca, Gennarose Pope, Ray Smith, Al Sullivan and E. Assata Wright. "They've Got the Power". The Union City Reporter. January 8, 2012. Pages 1, 4-7 and 10-11.
^Cruz, Vanessa; DeChiaro, Dean; Rambay Fernandez, Adriana; Palasciano, Amanda; Sullivan, Al; Wright, E. Assata (January 13, 2013). "Power Surge". The Union City Reporter. pp. 1, 5-7, 10.
^DeChiaro, Dean; Sullivan, Al (February 2, 2014). "The 'Power List'". The Union City Reporter. p. 6.
^Sullivan, Al; Davis, Carlo; Schwartz, Art; Passantino, Joseph (January 18, 2015). The Union City Reporter, pp 1, 5, 9, 12