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182 H ughes’s great victory in 1965, when he was reelected and brought in Democratic majorities in both the Assembly and Senate, and the tremendous success he had in the early days of his second term, led him to become even more ambitious in pushing his progressive liberal agenda. However, a number of the reforms he backed proved unpopular. The legislation Hughes supported to make it more difficult to own a gun, and especially difficult to obtain a permit to carry a handgun, met with opposition from hunters and the gun lobby. Hughes argued that the law would strengthen the hand of law enforcement without interfering with the rights of hunters. He said the state would remain a “sportsman’s state.”1 Nonetheless, after the legislation passed, there was a backlash from the opponents. Another legislative initiative, this one dealing with benefits for strikers, drew even harsher criticism. For years, the Democratic platform included the enactment of laws providing for unemployment benefits for strikers. Businesses feared that such benefits would unbalance the bargaining process, and thus strongly opposed the proposed legislation. It seemed as if everyone other than strong union sympathizers were against this legislation. Newspapers editorialized against it. The Republicans called the proposed law an incentive for workers to strike. It was decried as an attempt to buy union support for the 1967 elections.2 But the Democrats pushed the issue through the legislature and became only the third state in the country to have such a law. The governor signed the legislation on April 24, 1967, to take effect in 1968. The law would never be used, however, because the Republicans capitalized on that and other issues in the 1967 elections, and as a result, gained control Chapter 14 1967–1968 1967–1968 183 of the Assembly and the Senate. When they took office in 1968, one of the first things they did was eliminate the strikers’ benefit law. There were other reasons for the Democrats’ legislative losses in those midterm elections. Many voters were dissatisfied with Democrats at the national level because of frustration with Lyndon Johnson’s policy on the Vietnam War. Within New Jersey there was a backlash in response to the recent urban riots, and “to a speech made by Education Commissioner Carl L. Marburger that was interpreted as proposing busing of school children between communities.”3 Busing was a very controversial issue and a cause of great concern to many parents. The Republicans took advantage of these factors to gain control of the legislature. The day after the Democrats lost control of the legislature in 1967, Hughes was in Washington for a meeting of a subcommittee of the Kerner Commission. President Johnson had asked him to stop by and see him. Hughes told the president about the beating the Democrats had taken and suggested it was the result of the many “reforms” they had pushed through. The president responded, “That happens sometimes when you do things that you know are right.”4 Later, Hughes recounted a comment Johnson made at that meeting suggesting that he was already considering whether he would run again. “I don’t know what I am going to do next year, but whatever I do, I am going to consider it sort of in this order: first of all, the interests of the United States of America; and second, I am concerned a little about my place in history as a president; and third the interests of the Democratic Party.”5 While this may have been a hint that Johnson might not run again, Hughes said he was “as surprised as anybody in the country” when the president announced his decision on March 31, 1968.6 Another program that had its genesis while the Democrats still controlled the legislature in 1967 was the Medicaid program. The federal government had proposed the creation of a Medicaid program to provide medical benefits to low-income families. To participate in the program, a state had to enact a program by January 1, 1970. Hughes, ever eager to take part in federal programs that would help citizens of New Jersey, was a supporter. If New Jersey got involved, it would receive approximately half the necessary funding for the program from the federal government. It was estimated at the time that the program would cover 1.4 million people in New Jersey. The Medicaid program was generally well received, and did not become an...

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