LD26 PRIMARY FIGHT: Freeholder Lyon Announces Gas Tax Assembly Challenge to DeCroce

DeCroce (L) and Webber (R)

Here’s a NEW race to watch this June, Save Jerseyans….

Freeholder Hank Lyon (R-Morris) has announced that he’s running for Assembly this year in LD26, Save Jerseyans, but he’s only aiming at one of two Republican incumbents.

“I commend Assemblyman Jay Webber for his conservative leadership in Trenton. I hope to have the chance to work with him to advance our shared principles. I am not running against Jay Webber, I’m challenging Assemblywoman DeCroce and look forward to comparing my conservative credentials with her liberal record,” Lyon said in a statement obtained by Save Jersey.

I’ve known Hank for awhile now. Elected to the Morris County Freeholder Board at age 23 in 2011, Lyon says reversing the 23-cent per gallon gas tax increase is his top priority. While Webber opposed last October’s controversial hike, DeCroce was among its Republican backers.

“I’m running for the State Assembly because I believe the people of the 26th District deserve leaders who will fight for lower taxes, less debt, and more freedom. I intend to give Republican primary voters a conservative alternative to BettyLou DeCroce in 2017,” added Lyon, who runs his family’s small business, a collection of restaurants and real estate, when he’s not engaged in the business of helping govern Morris County.

DeCroce, for her part, has served in the Assembly since 2012 when she was appointed to fill the seat of he rlate husband, for GOP Leader Alex DeCroce.

A deep red district, LD26 includes the Essex County towns of Fairfield Township, North Caldwell Borough, Verona Township and West Caldwell Township, the Morris County municipalities of Butler Borough, Jefferson Township, Kinnelon Borough, Lincoln Park Borough, Montville Township, Morris Plains Borough, Parsippany-Troy Hills Township and Rockaway Township, and the sole Passaic County outpost of West Milford Township.

Hank’s challenge looks like this cycle’s only legitimately ideological challenge to an incumbent Republican gas tax supporter as of this writing. There’s another primary in nearby LD24, too, for example, but sources tell us that’s just as much a local turf war as anything else despite the combatants’ different public gas tax positions.

Added unpredictably factors into this contest given Lyon’s name recognition in the Morris portions of the district where, as our regular readers will recall, there is no “line.”

Another X factor? Whether a lame duck Chris Christie wades into this fight to make good on his threat to help Big Labor defeat gas tax opponents.

Buckle up.

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Matt Rooney
About Matt Rooney 8403 Articles
MATT ROONEY is SaveJersey.com's founder and editor-in-chief, a practicing New Jersey attorney, and the host of 'The Matt Rooney Show' on 1210 WPHT every Sunday evening from 7-10PM EST.

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