John Farmer Jr.

John J. Farmer Jr. (born June 24, 1957) is an American lawyer, politician and jurist. He is Special Counsel to the President of Rutgers University, ^[1] and was formerly Dean of Rutgers School of Law–Newark. He served as Acting Governor of New Jersey for 90 minutes on January 8, 2002, by virtue of his status as New Jersey Attorney General.

Early life and career

Farmer was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1957. He attended Georgetown University receiving a B.A. degree in 1979 and a J.D. degree in 1986. After law school he worked as a clerk for New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Alan B. Handler. From 1988 to 1990, he was an associate in the law firm of Riker, Danzig, Scherer, Hyland & Perretti in Morristown. From 1990 to 1994 he was an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey.

Whitman administration

In 1997, Governor Christine Todd Whitman appointed Farmer as Chief Counsel, after having served as Deputy Chief Counsel and Assistant Counsel to the Governor.^[2]

Farmer was nominated to be New Jersey Attorney General on March 15, 1999, and was sworn in the following June after being confirmed unanimously by the New Jersey Senate. He continued to serve under Donald DiFrancesco after Whitman's resignation.

Acting Governor

Farmer served as Acting Governor for 90 minutes. Following Governor Christine Todd Whitman's resignation the previous year to become head of the EPA, Farmer was one of four people to serve as acting governor for the one-year period between Whitman's resignation and Jim McGreevey's inauguration, along with three different senate presidents (Donald DiFrancesco, John O. Bennett, and Richard Codey). DiFrancesco served as acting governor for all but the last week of this period, until his term as senate president ended on January 8, 2002. At the end of DiFrancesco's tenure as Governor of New Jersey, the state did not have the position of lieutenant governor, and succession rules specified that the next in line for governor after the Senate President would be the Attorney General -- Farmer -- until the next Senate President could be sworn in. Bennett and Codey, the Senate Co-Presidents, then divided the last week of the term among them as Governor, with Bennett serving from January 8, 2002 to January 12, 2002; and Codey serving from January 12, 2002, to January 15, 2002. As a result, the state had five different people serving as governor during a period of eight days.^[3]

Recent developments

Farmer subsequently acted as Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission (officially known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States) chaired by former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean and former Indiana Congressman Lee H. Hamilton.

Most recently, Farmer has served as Dean of Rutgers School of Law–Newark. In his tenure, Farmer, in conjunction with the Rutgers Law Review, planned a multi-day symposium to address the many legal uncertainties in post-9/11 national security policy and practices. The symposium featured Thomas Kean, Michael Chertoff, and Judge John Joseph Gibbons, among other scholars and national security leaders. He has also welcomed two United States Supreme Court Justices-- Stephen Breyer and Samuel Alito—to the Law School for exclusive speaking engagements. Prior to his deanship, Farmer practiced law as a partner in a North Jersey firm he founded, and was an adjunct professor of law at the Rutgers School of Law–Newark. He also regularly contributes to The Star-Ledger and appears in The New York Times, among other publications.

Farmer's book, The Ground Truth: The Untold Story of America Under Attack On 9/11,^[4] was released days before the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. In "The Ground Truth," Farmer made the following controversial statement: “At some level of government,” says Dean Farmer, “at some point in time, a decision was made not to tell the truth about the national response to the attacks on the morning of 9/11. We owe the truth to the families of the victims of 9/11. We owe it to the American public as well, because only by understanding what has gone wrong in the past can we assure our nation’s safety in the future.”^[5]

On January 21, 2010, he appeared on The Colbert Report.

In July 2011 he was appointed the 13th (and tie-breaking) member of New Jersey's Congressional Redistricting Commission by both its Democratic and Republican members.^[6] New Jersey lost one Congressional seat in redistricting and the panel redraw the congressional districts, determining which seat was lost.^[7]

On April 11, 2013, he was appointed as the Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Rutgers University.

References

Attorneys General of New Jersey (Since 1947 State Constitution)
Parsons Richman Furman Sills Kugler Hyland Degnan Zazzali Kimmelman Edwards Perretti Del Tufo Poritz Verniero Farmer Samson Harvey Farber Rabner Milgram Dow Chiesa Hoffman (Acting) Lougy (Acting) Porrino