Steve Rothman
Steven Richard Rothman is an American former jurist and Democratic politician who served as the U.S. representative for New Jersey's 9th congressional district, serving for 16 years from January 3, 1997, to January 3, 2013.
Rothman was a member of the House Appropriations Committee, and also served on the House Judiciary, Foreign Affairs, and Science and Technology Committees. Prior to his election to the U.S. Congress, Rothman also served as the elected Bergen County Surrogate Court judge, and the two-term mayor of the City of Englewood, New Jersey.
After the congressional redistricting of December 23, 2011, was announced, Rothman competed in a Democratic primary to continue to represent the redrawn NJ-9. He was defeated on June 5, 2012, in a primary election by fellow incumbent Bill Pascrell.
Early life, education and pre-congressional career
Early life and education
Rothman was born on October 14, 1952, in Englewood, New Jersey, to Philip and Muriel Rothman; he and his twin Arthur joined an older sister Susan. Steve attended the Roosevelt Public Elementary School in Englewood until the fifth grade when the family moved to nearby Tenafly, where he completed his education in the Tenafly Public School System.Rothman graduated in 1970 from Tenafly High School, where he was senior class president, Best School Citizen, was first clarinet, first chair in the Tenafly High School Orchestra, was a member of the Tenafly High School Madrigal Singers, played the lead in Tenafly High School's production of Twelve Angry Men, wrestled, played soccer and tennis. He was a freestyle and backstroke swimmer in a New Jersey Jewish Community Center swim league and completed his Water Safety Instructor Certificate in 1971.
In his senior year in high school, Rothman became the chair of the 18-Year-Old Vote Campaign for Tenafly, New Jersey, seeking to secure the New Jersey legislature's support for the proposed 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ensuring 18-year-old U.S. citizens the right to vote.
In 1974 he earned a B.A. degree from Syracuse University, where he majored in political philosophy. In 1972 he was selected by a student-faculty-administrator search committee to serve on the university's student supreme court for his sophomore, junior and senior years. He was elected Chief Justice of the UJB by its members for 1973–74.
While at Syracuse, Rothman was lead singer in a folk-rock music group named "Sweet Rock."
From 1974 to 1977 Rothman attended the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was awarded a Juris Doctor degree in 1977.
In each of his three years at law school, Rothman was a High School Law Project member, teaching a course he wrote on the "U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights" to urban and suburban high school students in the St. Louis City and Metropolitan area. In 1975, Rothman won the "Best Oralist" Award in the Washington University School of Law Moot Court Competition. In 1976, Rothman and his partner Gerald Kline placed first among twelve teams representing six law schools at the Eighth Circuit Regional Moot Court Regional Competition in Rapid City, South Dakota, also winning "Best Brief."
Rothman was admitted to the New Jersey bar in 1977 and became a practicing New Jersey attorney. In 1982, he was admitted to practice law also in New York. In 1984 he was admitted to practice law before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Early career
Rothman started his legal career as a trial associate at the firm of Miller, Hochman, Myerson and Schaeffer in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1977. In January 1980, he started his own firm for the general practice law in Englewood in a two-room office over a barber shop on Depot Square. In 1977, Rothman moved his residence from Tenafly to Englewood.Rothman became active in Englewood community affairs, serving as president of the Scarborough Manor Tenants' Association, where he performed pro bono legal services for the poor and elderly faced with eviction following condominium conversion. He also was the co-founder of the Englewood Hispanic Lion's Club and a member of the United Jewish Community of Bergen County and member of the Board of Governors of the Jewish Community Center on the Palisades.
Politically, he was Campaign Coordinator for various Englewood City Council-member races as well as a member of the Englewood Democratic Club, the Englewood Democratic Municipal Committee, the Bergen County Young Democrats, and the New Jersey Young Democrats. He held the office of Treasurer for the Bergen County Democratic Party, for State Senator Matthew Feldman, as well as for various Bergen County Democratic Freeholder campaigns.
Englewood's mayor
In 1982, Rothman ran for and won the city's Democratic Party nomination to be Englewood's mayor. Rothman was also endorsed by the Englewood Black Clergy Council and the Englewood Patrolman's Benevolent Association. He won the Democratic primary and the November 1982 general elections. At his January 1983 swearing in, he was 30 years old. Rothman served two terms from 1983 to 1989. He remains the youngest mayor in Englewood's history.Rothman served two terms as Englewood's mayor, from 1983 to 1989. In 1992, he was elected as the Bergen County Surrogate Court judge and remained in this position until running for Congress in 1996.
Libyan government buys Englewood property
In December 1982, just before the start of Rothman's first mayoral term, the Libyan government bought a five-acre estate "on the hill" in Englewood. There was widespread community concern that Col. Mohmmar Kaddafi, an internationally acknowledged terrorist and the dictator of Libya, a country with which the U.S. did not have diplomatic relations at the time, would take up part-time residence at the Englewood mansion and thus precipitate violent conflict in Englewood between his supporters and opponents.Just days before Rothman was to be sworn in as the new mayor, one of Englewood's former mayors, The Reverend Walter Taylor, who was also the minister of the Galilee United Methodist Church in Englewood and the president of the Englewood Black Clergy Council, held a press conference at the United Nations Press Club and denounced "self-styled Zionists" who were seeking to keep Libyans out of Englewood. Taylor described this as a "question of Jewish influence." The next night, at the January 1983 Mayor and Council Reorganization Meeting, the other leaders of the Englewood Black Clergy Council denounced Taylor, and the Englewood Black Clergy Council appeared at the meeting to publicly disassociate themselves from Taylor's comments.
After he was sworn in, Rothman went to Washington, D.C., to lobby the Reagan State Department to use the newly enacted "Foreign Missions Act" to restrict the use of the estate to the Libyan ambassador to the United Nations and his family. In June 1983, the Foreign Missions Office of the State Department announced its decision to implement the "Act" by limiting use of the property to strictly residential and recreational purposes for the Ambassador and his immediate family. It forbade any other use of the estate by the Libyan government.
In the summer of 2009, in advance of the U.N. General Assembly Meeting, it was discovered that Kaddafi was significantly renovating the Englewood mansion and grounds to be used as one of his homes. Rothman, at that time the U.S. congressman for the 9th congressional district of New Jersey, which included Englewood, worked with the Obama State Department to continue the 1983 conditions for the Libyan government's use of the Englewood estate. Renovations ceased and Kaddafi never set foot on the Englewood property.
Other mayoral initiatives
In 1984, Rothman led the effort to save the regional Community Mental Health Organization, a state and county-funded agency located in Englewood that served 180,000 people, disproportionately Englewood residents, in the area. He organized a successful fundraising effort by eleven Bergen County mayors after they had been notified that state and county support was being threatened by a $200,000 shortfall in CMHO accounting. Rothman helped the CMHO achieve sustained state and county support and promoted a change of private managers, making it part of another county mental health agency while it remained in the same Englewood building.May 19, 1985, Rothman was sworn in as the new president of the Bergen County Democratic Mayors Association.
Rothman announced in 1988 that he would not seek a third term so that he could devote more time to family and his private law practice.
Personal
Rothman and his first wife had two children, John and Karen. His subsequent marriage also ended in divorce. Rothman now resides in Englewood, New Jersey.Post-mayoral activities
Rothman continued his general practice of law in Englewood, expanding his offices and staff.In 1989, Rothman ran unsuccessfully as one of three Democratic candidates to fill three openings on the Bergen County Board of Chosen Freeholders. Bergen County was the largest county in New Jersey with 850,00 people. Rothman lost the election by less than 2,000 votes.
In 1989, Rothman was appointed Chairman of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Northern New Jersey. In 1991, Rothman hosted 500 Christians, Jews, Muslims, Bahais and Sikhs for the 5th Annual Brotherhood/Sisterhood Interfaith Breakfast, sponsored by the JCRC.
In 1990 and 1991, Rothman served as Treasurer of the respective Bergen County Democratic Party Freeholder races.
In 1990 and 1991, Rothman was also active in local affairs, joining the Wyckoff Democratic Municipal Committee and serving as its chairman. During that time, he also served as Campaign Manager for Jack Van Horne for Wyckoff Township Council. He and his wife were also members of "Wyckoff Partners In Pride," a community beautification committee of volunteers.