Late Lieutenant Governor Honored As ‘True Public Servant' At Statehouse Portrait Unveiling

By Morgan Leason, New Jersey Monitor

August 25, 2025

State officials unveiled a portrait of the late Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver at the Statehouse in Trenton on Thursday, about two years after Oliver’s death.

Oliver, the first Black woman speaker of the New Jersey Assembly, was elected as Gov. Phil Murphy’s running mate in 2017 and reelected in 2021. Murphy on Thursday said she devoted her life to fighting injustice.

“She was the definition, as they say in baseball, of a five-tool athlete, from fighting to expand affordable housing to supporting community revitalization up and down our state,” he said. “Sheila was the architect behind some of our greatest victories in building a stronger, fairer, and more just New Jersey.”

Murphy pointed to the wall of white, male portraits hanging in the Statehouse, noting that Oliver’s portrait, along with one of former Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno that was unveiled just weeks ago, will bring some diversity to the wall.

Oliver’s political career started with positions on the East Orange school board and the Essex County Board of County Commissioners, when they were called freeholders. She was elected in 2003 to represent the 34th District in the Assembly, and in 2010, she became the Assembly speaker.

As lieutenant governor, Oliver stepped in as acting governor during key moments, including in March 2020 when Murphy was undergoing cancer treatment and New Jersey recorded its first cases of COVID-19.

Oliver was behind numerous pieces of legislation during her time in the Assembly, including measures creating a caregiver task force, strengthening equal pay protections, launching mandatory youth financial literacy education, and starting a program aimed at keeping youth out of detention centers.

“Sheila wasn’t a politician, she was a true public servant,” Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way said at the ceremony. “That’s who Sheila was – one who saw beyond titles and cared about the whole person in front of her.”

Oliver led the Department of Community Affairs while serving as lieutenant governor. She died on Aug. 1, 2023, at age 71.

Oliver will soon be inducted into the hall of fame in New Jersey, according to Renee Oliver, the president of the Sheila Y. Oliver Foundation.

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