Longtime Senator And Civil Rights Icon Ron Rice Dead At 77

By Nikita Biryukov, New Jersey Monitor

March 17, 2023

Former state Sen. Ron Rice, a civil rights titan and maverick Newark Democrat, has died at 77.

Rice, a Virginia native, served in government at various levels for 40 years, including 36 years in the Senate made Rice one of the state’s longest-serving legislators before he resigned the position last August amid mounting health issues that frequently kept him from the Statehouse.

In the Legislature, Rice’s positions usually aligned with those held by his caucus, though he split with Democrats on marijuana legalization and initially opposed the legalization of same-sex marriage (he voted in favor of a bill that codified those marriage protections last year).

His independence sometimes chafed at party leaders, as in 2019, when he accused Gov. Phil Murphy, Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, and then-Senate President Steve Sweeney of feigning support for Black lawmakers’ priorities to secure their votes on other legislation.

“Whenever we meet with white elected state officials and staff to effect positive change in the areas of social justice reform, criminal justice reform, equal employment opportunity and the quality of life for people of color, we are met with patronizing conversations, a smile, the pretense of understanding, and empty promises for cooperation,” Rice wrote in a letter to Murphy then.

When Rice retired from the Senate last year, Murphy said he “forced his fellow legislators – and to be sure, governors – to confront uncomfortable truths.”

Rice’s career in public office began on the Newark City Council in 1982. He would represent the city’s West Ward for 16 years before giving up the position to become Newark’s deputy mayor in 2002, and he gave up the latter job to mount an unsuccessful campaign for Newark mayor four years later.

Rice entered the Legislature in 1986 after winning a special election called in the wake of the death of Sen. John Caufield that August.

A former U.S. Marine Corps sergeant, Rice would go on to serve in the Senate for decades, surviving multiple competitive challenges, including a 1997 campaign that found Rice running for reelection off-the-line — or without party support — against former Newark police officer Laurence Brown Sr.

Rice’s 2022 resignation came two years after the death of his wife, Shirley, in August 2020. Senate colleagues and others who knew Rice well said the senator was changed by her death. The two were married for 35 years.

Rice is survived by his two children, Yuki Rice Faison and former Newark City Councilman Ronald C. Rice.

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