By Anne Levin

Former New Jersey governor and congressman Jim Florio died Sunday of heart failure. He was 85.

A Democrat who was elected governor in 1989, Florio lost to Christine Todd Whitman instead of winning a second term when he raised taxes after vowing that he would not. But he is also remembered for his achievements on cleaning up hazardous waste sites and banning military-style assault rifles, the latter of which earned him a JFK Profiles in Courage award from the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.

“Governor Florio was a fighter who never backed down,” Gov. Phil Murphy said in an official statement Monday after signing an executive order directing flags to fly at half-staff in Florio’s honor. “He was a leader who cared more about the future of New Jersey than his own political fortunes.”

Among those remembering Florio this week was William Harla, a Princeton resident and attorney who was Florio’s deputy chief legal counsel. In the decades since, Harla has practiced law at DeCotiis, Fitzpatrick, Cole and Giblin with Bob DeCotiis, who was the governor’s chief counsel.

“Governor Florio was a man of great intellect, ethics, and decency,” Harla said in an email on Monday. “He cared deeply about the people of New Jersey and he fought hard for them over his career. He was often described as a ‘fighter,’ in part because of his Navy boxing career, and he did fight hard about public policies, but not about personalities.”

“When he faced a veto-proof Republican legislature in his last two years in office, he didn’t run,” Harla continued. “He engaged with the Republican speaker and the Senate president to work out state budget, and other issues — from health care to the environment to insurance reform to anti-discrimination measures — to help people.”

Born in Brooklyn, Florio was a graduate of Trenton State College (now The College of New Jersey), and earned a law degree from Rutgers University. He was an amateur boxer before entering college and then moving on to public service. Florio was Camden’s assistant city attorney, later serving four years in the state Assembly and 15 years in the U.S. House of Representatives. After his term as governor, he ran for the U.S. Senate in 2000, losing to investment banker Jon Corzine.

“I am devastated to hear of Jim Florio’s passing,” said Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, in a statement. “Jim dedicated his career to serving New Jersey families, spending a quarter of a century in public office. In Congress, Jim fought to pass the Superfund legislation that cleaned up toxic pollution across the country. As governor, he enacted our state’s life-saving assault weapons ban. Thanks to Jim, New Jersey is a cleaner, safer, better place.”

During his term as governor, Florio and his wife Lucinda lived at Drumthwacket, the official New Jersey governors’ residence on Stockton Street, “They were often seen walking on Nassau Street, with his state trooper escorts at a safe distance,” said Tim Quinn, Princeton Public Library’s marketing and communications director and a longtime Princeton resident. Lucinda Florio was a frequent guest reader for Storytime at the library before it was remodeled in 2004, Quinn added.

In June 2018, Florio appeared at the library to discuss his life in politics and his book, Standing on Principle: Lessons Learned in Public Life, with political columnist and Princeton resident Charles Stile.

Harla recalled his last meeting with Florio a few weeks ago. “Our conversation wasn’t about politics or children or old friends,” he said. “It was about renewable energy and the environment. Uninteresting topics for some, maybe, but exhilarating for him because he never lost his desire to try to improve the lives of regular people by getting decision-makers to think about possibilities. Jim was a gentleman to the end, and the New Jersey body politic will miss him sorely.”