Job creation will be front and center for Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R. 11-th Dist.) when he starts his 11th term, the Congressman said after easily dispatching Democratic challenger Mark Dunec on Tuesday.
Frelinghuysen predicted a more cooperative atmosphere in Washington under GOP control of both houses.
“I think you will see good bi-partisan relationships [in Washington] in January,” the Harding resident said at a GOP victory celebration at the Famished Frog in Morristown.
Jobs bills that passed the House with bi-partisan support now may have a shot in the Senate, he contended.
Legislators have heard loud and clear from voters fed up with political gridlock in the Capitol, he added.
“People are pretty disappointed with Congress as an institution,” Frelinghuysen acknowledged. “They’re certainly unhappy about our spending and taxation.”
Both parties should support President Obama’s foreign policy, said the Congressman, who chairs the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee.
“We are a nation at war…with ISIS, a very barbarous group. We have to be united behind the president in terms of destroying it,” Frelinghuysen said.
But the Congressman also defended Gov. Chris Christie’s controversial move to mandate quarantines for people returning to Jersey from Ebola-plagued West Africa.
“I know he got a lot of push-back and criticism,” Frelinghuysen said. “But in the absence of federal leadership, he filled a void, as did [New York] Gov. Cuomo.”
Frelinghuysen garnered more than 66 percent of the 83, 144 ballots cast across the district, according to unofficial results from Morris County.
Dunec said the campaign taught him not to judge anyone “until you walk in their shoes.” While his mix of fiscal conservatism and social liberalism did not resonate with voters, he said, citizens still received him courteously.
He also thanked Frelinghuysen, and described his victory as “a testament of his service to our communities.
“We’ve run into each other numerous times on the campaign trail and he always has been friendly and courteous. Like us, he ran a clean campaign and was always a gentleman,” said Dunec.
His 10-year-old son, David, clutched a copy of his concession speech at a Democratic gathering at Sona Thirteen in Morristown.
The youth conceded feeling “a little disappointed” by his dad’s defeat. Still, he expressed pride in his party affiliation. Why?
“Because I want to help people,” David Dunec said.
