L. Grace Spencer

L. Grace Spencer

New Jersey Vicinage 5 Superior Court

Tenure

2016 - Present

Years in position

8

Prior offices

New Jersey General Assembly District 29

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Elections and appointments

Appointed

2016

Education

Bachelor's

Rutgers University

Law

Rutgers School of Law

Personal

Profession

Attorney

Grace Spencer (b. March 15, 1968) is a judge in the Family Division of the Vicinage 5 Superior Court serving Essex County in New Jersey. She was appointed to the court in 2016 by then-Governor Chris Christie (R) and assumed office on July 1, 2016.

Prior to taking the bench, Spencer was a Democratic member of the New Jersey General Assembly, representing District 29 from 2008 to June 30, 2016. She resigned to become a judge on the New Jersey Superior Court. While in office, she served as a Deputy Speaker of the Assembly.

Biography

Spencer earned her B.A. in business management from Rutgers University-Newark and her J.D. from Rutgers Law School. Her professional experience includes working as an attorney for the firm of Marshall, Dennehey, Warner, Coleman and Goggin and for the Law Office of L. Grace Spencer.^[1]

Committee assignments

2016 legislative session

At the beginning of the 2016 legislative session, Spencer served on the following committees:

2015 legislative session

In the 2015 legislative session, Spencer served on the following committees:

2014 legislative session

In the 2014 legislative session, Spencer served on the following committees:

2010-2012

In the 2010-2012 legislative session, Spencer served on the following committees:

Sponsored legislation

The following table lists bills this person sponsored as a legislator, according to BillTrack50 and sorted by action history. Bills are sorted by the date of their last action. The following list may not be comprehensive. To see all bills this legislator sponsored, click on the legislator's name in the title of the table.

Elections

2015

See also: New Jersey General Assembly elections, 2015

Elections for the New Jersey General Assembly took place in 2015. A primary election was held on June 2, 2015. The general election took place on November 3, 2015. The signature filing deadline for candidates wishing to run in this election was March 30, 2015.^[2] Since the general assembly uses multi-member districts, the top two candidates from each party in the primaries advanced to the general election. Incumbent L. Grace Spencer and incumbent Eliana Pintor Marin were bracketed together and were unopposed in the Democratic primary. Nicholas Campione and Jeannette Veras were bracketed together and were unopposed in the Republican primary. Spencer and Pintor Marin defeated Campione, Veras and Pablo Olivera (Wake Up Jersey) in the general election.^[3][4][5][6]

New Jersey General Assembly, District 29 General Election, 2015
Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Democratic	L. Grace Spencer Incumbent	42.9%	7,146
	Democratic	Eliana Pintor Marin Incumbent	39.2%	6,539
	Republican	Nicholas Campione	8.5%	1,409
	Republican	Jeannette Veras	6.5%	1,077
	Wake Up Jersey	Pablo Olivera	3%	498
Total Votes				16,669

2013

See also: New Jersey General Assembly elections, 2013

Spencer won re-election in the 2013 election for New Jersey General Assembly District 29. Spencer was bracketed with Alberto Coutinho. He was unopposed in the June 4 Democratic primary. He and Eliana Pintor Marin (D) defeated Aracelis Sanabria Tejada (R) and Elaine L. Guarino (R) in the general election, which took place on November 5, 2013.^{[7][8][9][10]}

New Jersey General Assembly, District 29 General Election, 2013
Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Democratic	L. Grace Spencer Incumbent	40.4%	15,259
	Democratic	Eliana Pintor Marin	38.8%	14,645
	Republican	Aracelis Sanabria Tejada	10.5%	3,957
	Republican	Elaine L. Guarino	10.3%	3,903
Total Votes				37,764

2011

See also: New Jersey General Assembly elections, 2011

Spencer won re-election in 2011. She and incumbent Alberto Coutinho ran unopposed in the Democratic Primary on June 7. They then defeated Elaine Guarino and Lisa Kistner in the November 8 general election.^[11]

New Jersey General Assembly District 29 General Election, 2011
Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Democratic	L. Grace Spencer Incumbent	42%	8,572
	Democratic	Alberto Coutinho Incumbent	41.2%	8,391
	Republican	Elaine Guarino	8.5%	1,736
	Republican	Lisa Kistner	8.3%	1,687
Total Votes				20,386

2009

See also: New Jersey General Assembly elections, 2009

Spencer successfully won re-election in the November 3, 2009, general election. She was bracketed with Alberto Coutinho and defeated Republican challengers Aracelis Sanabria-Tejada and Fernando Linhares, along with Independent candidate Joanne Miller.^{[12] [13]}

New Jersey Assembly General Election, Twenty-Ninth Legislative District (2009)
Candidates		Votes
L. Grace Spencer (D)		21,205
Alberto Coutinho (D)		20,628
Fernando E. Linhares (R)		2,787
Aracelis Sanabria-Tejada (R)		2,761

Campaign finance summary

Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.

Scorecards

See also: State legislative scorecards and State legislative scorecards in New Jersey

A scorecard evaluates a legislator’s voting record. Its purpose is to inform voters about the legislator’s political positions. Because scorecards have varying purposes and methodologies, each report should be considered on its own merits. For example, an advocacy group’s scorecard may assess a legislator’s voting record on one issue while a state newspaper’s scorecard may evaluate the voting record in its entirety.

Ballotpedia is in the process of developing an encyclopedic list of published scorecards. Some states have a limited number of available scorecards or scorecards produced only by select groups. It is Ballotpedia’s goal to incorporate all available scorecards regardless of ideology or number.

Click here for an overview of legislative scorecards in all 50 states.  To contribute to the list of New Jersey scorecards, email suggestions to editor@ballotpedia.org.

2016

In 2016, the 217th New Jersey State Legislature, first annual session, was in session from January 12 through January 10, 2017.

• Planned Parenthood Action Fund of New Jersey

Legislators are scored on bills related to reproductive health issues.

• The American Conservative Union

Legislators are scored on their votes on conservative issues.

2015

2014

2013

2012

Endorsements

2013

In 2013, Spencer’s endorsements included the following:^{[14] [15]}

• The New Jersey AFL-CIO
• Planned Parenthood Action Fund of New Jersey

Recent news

This section links to a Google news search for the term "L. + Grace + Spencer + New + Jersey + General + Assembly"

See also

• New Jersey Superior Courts
• New Jersey Vicinage 5
• Courts in New Jersey
• New Jersey General Assembly
• General Assembly Committees
• New Jersey State Legislature
• Joint Committees
• New Jersey state legislative districts

External links

Footnotes

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