Sen. Nellie Pou was elected in November to fill the seat of Rep. Bill Pascrell, who died in August. (Hal Brown for New Jersey Monitor)
Two state legislators set to join Congress next month gave impassioned goodbye speeches during their last legislative sessions in the Statehouse Thursday.
Sen. Nellie Pou (D-Passaic) and Assemblyman Herb Conaway Jr. (D-Burlington) served over a half-century combined in the Statehouse. Pou was elected in November to fill the seat of Rep. Bill Pascrell, who died in August, while Conaway will replace Sen. Andy Kim, who hopped from the House to the Senate seat long held by Sen. Bob Menendez, who was convicted in a corruption scheme in July.
They’ll join Congress on Jan. 3, when members of both houses get sworn in in Washington, D.C.
Pou, 68, teared up as she thanked her Latino colleagues in the Legislature. She has chaired the New Jersey Legislative Latino Caucus since 2006 and will be the first Latina to represent New Jersey in Congress.
“I cannot tell you how much I love you all. I thank you for your support, for your encouragement, for your tenacity, for being the strong women and men that we have in our Latino caucus. Stay strong. Stay true to your word. Stay true to your belief, and your voices will continue to be heard,” she said.
Pou has served in the state Legislature since 1997, when she also succeeded Pascrell after he left the Assembly to serve in Congress. She moved to the state Senate in 2012, where she currently serves as the majority caucus chair and on the commerce and judiciary committees.
Conaway, 61, a physician who has chaired the Assembly’s health committee for 17 years, has been a member of the Assembly since 1998 and was a captain in the United States Air Force Medical Corps. He also is the Assembly’s deputy speaker and serves on its budget and military and veteran affairs committees.
“It has been one of the great honors of my life to be able to serve in this body,” Conaway told his Assembly colleagues. “While there might be disagreements over policy issues, by and large, the people who have served here have come to service because they care deeply about our state and the communities they’re privileged to serve. We get criticized a bit as public servants, as politicians, if you will. But I say to you, and I believe most of the people in here recognize that as well, that it is a noble calling.”
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