Senator Jeff Chiesa

Jeffrey Scott Chiesa (kee-AY-zə; born June 22, 1965) is an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States Senator from New Jersey from June 6 to October 30, 2013. A member of the Republican Party, he is, to date, the last Republican to serve as a U.S. Senator from New Jersey. His brief tenure in the Senate followed his service as the 59th Attorney General of New Jersey from January 10, 2012, until June 6, 2013, and capped a long career in both private practice and public service at the state and federal levels.

Chiesa grew up in Bound Brook, New Jersey, the eldest of three children. When he was eight years old, his father, a chemical plant worker, died, and he was raised thereafter by his mother, a public school teacher. He attended Bound Brook High School before enrolling at the University of Notre Dame, where he graduated in 1987 with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in accounting. He went on to earn his Juris Doctor from the Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., in 1990, preparing for a career that would combine private legal practice with increasingly prominent roles in government.

In 1988, while still in the early stages of his legal career, Chiesa joined the Cranford, New Jersey, law firm of Dughi, Hewit & Palatucci (now known as Dughi & Hewit). There he met and befriended Chris Christie, who had joined the firm the previous year. The professional and personal relationship forged between Chiesa and Christie at this firm would later shape much of Chiesa’s public career. After more than a decade in private practice, Chiesa followed Christie in 2002 to the office of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, where Christie had been appointed U.S. Attorney.

From 2002 to 2009, Chiesa held several senior positions in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey, including counsel to the U.S. Attorney, Chief of the Public Protection Unit, and Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney. In these roles he led a number of high-profile public corruption cases, including the prosecution of former New Jersey State Senate President John A. Lynch Jr. His work focused on public integrity and the protection of citizens from fraud and abuse. Chiesa left the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 2009 to become a partner at the law firm Wolff & Samson, but he soon returned to public service following Christie’s election as Governor of New Jersey later that year.

After Christie’s gubernatorial victory in 2009, Chiesa headed the governor-elect’s transition team and was subsequently named Chief Counsel to Governor Christie. In that capacity, he advised the governor on legal and policy matters and played a role in key legislative negotiations. In June 2010, for example, Christie dispatched Chiesa to speak with Republican Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll in an effort to persuade him to drop his opposition to the state budget, which cut proportionally more aid to suburban schools than to urban ones. On December 12, 2011, Governor Christie nominated Chiesa to succeed Paula Dow as Attorney General of New Jersey, and Chiesa was sworn in as the state’s 59th Attorney General on January 10, 2012.

As Attorney General, Chiesa oversaw the state’s law enforcement and legal affairs and advanced several policy initiatives. He supported mandatory drug rehabilitation treatment for non-violent drug offenders and advocated for holding violent defendants without bail. In January 2012, he proposed a comprehensive program to address prescription drug abuse, addictions, and overdoses. In February 2012, he helped secure $837.7 million for distressed New Jersey homeowners as part of a national settlement with major banks, at a time when 10.6 percent of New Jersey homeowners were 90 or more days delinquent on their mortgages, the third-highest percentage in the nation. In April 2012, he announced the arrest of three men accused of theft at Home Depot stores across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and New York, involving more than 500 “under-ringing” transactions at self-checkout machines totaling over $100,000. That same month, he announced the arrests of 27 individuals in a major child pornography operation known as “Operation Watchdog,” which required the participation of more than 100 law enforcement officers. He also filed a lawsuit against John Kot and Gabriel R. DaSilva, leaders of home improvement companies, alleging fraud and multiple violations of state law.

Chiesa’s service in Congress occurred during a significant period in American history and arose from an unexpected vacancy. On June 6, 2013, following the death of Democratic United States Senator Frank Lautenberg, Governor Christie announced that he would appoint Chiesa, then a resident of Branchburg, New Jersey, to fill the vacant Senate seat. Chiesa resigned as Attorney General that same day, and Executive Assistant Attorney General John Jay Hoffman became acting Attorney General. Chiesa was sworn in as a United States Senator on June 10, 2013, by Vice President Joe Biden, becoming the first Republican senator from New Jersey since Nicholas F. Brady, who had been appointed in 1982 by Governor Thomas Kean. Chiesa served from June 6 to October 30, 2013, completing one appointed term in office before the winner of a special election took the seat. He announced at the time of his appointment that he would not seek election to the remainder of the term in the 2013 special election, which was subsequently won by Democrat Cory Booker, then Mayor of Newark. Chiesa left the Senate on October 31, 2013, when Booker was sworn in, having recorded a tenure of 129 days, the fourth-shortest of the 65 U.S. Senators who have represented New Jersey.

During his time in the Senate, Chiesa participated in the democratic process and represented the interests of his constituents while aligning generally with his party. He described himself as “a conservative Republican, generally speaking,” and stated that on immigration reform, “the first thing we have to do is make sure the borders are secure.” His vote was regarded as crucial to the passage of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013. Senator John McCain jokingly remarked that he would “subject [Chiesa] to intense interrogation” to secure his support for the bill, while conservative commentator Ann Coulter criticized Governor Christie for appointing Chiesa after he voted for the legislation, declaring Christie “dead to me.” In July 2013, Chiesa signed the “Mike Lee letter,” which called for an amendment to a continuing resolution to defund the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. He opposed Democratic efforts to restore funding for the Affordable Care Act but ultimately voted for the Reid-McConnell bill that ended the federal government shutdown in October 2013. He used his brief Senate tenure to draw attention to the issue of human trafficking and, according to The Washington Post, voted with the Republican Party 84 percent of the time. During his service, he sat on the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation (including the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance), the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.

After leaving the Senate, Chiesa ruled out running for the seat in the regularly scheduled 2014 election but indicated that he would consider seeking public office again in the future. He returned to private legal practice while remaining involved in public affairs. In 2016, Governor Christie appointed Chiesa to oversee the state’s intervention in the finances and governance of Atlantic City during a period of severe fiscal distress; under this arrangement, Chiesa’s private firm was authorized to bill the state for its services. Through his various roles—as private attorney, federal prosecutor, state attorney general, gubernatorial counsel, and United States Senator—Jeffrey Scott Chiesa has played a notable part in New Jersey’s legal and political life in the early twenty-first century.