Reed Gusciora

Gusciora authored the "Paramount Safety" Law that changed the legal standard in child custody cases to protect the health and well being of the child when abuse has occurred. He is the author of a law that streamlines services for people with developmental disabilities through the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education. He is also the original prime sponsor of legislation that would allow patients to sue HMOs for malpractice and the "Senior Gold Prescription Discount Act," which expanded the state’s prescription drug program for seniors.

Christie responded, "What I said was I’m sure that civil rights advocates would have liked to have this as another option but it was not available to them, yet you have numbnuts like Reed Gusciora who put out a statement comparing me to George Wallace and Lester Maddox." The two later amended their differences.

Following a drive-by shooting of 11 people in May 2019, Guciora called upon the federal government to take more action controlling guns and gun violence.

In the 2016-2017 legislative session, Gusciora sponsored twenty-eight bills and co-sponsored thirty-nine bills for a total of sixty-seven bills which were signed into law.

In the 2014-2015 legislative session, Gusciora sponsored fourteen bills and co-sponsored thirty-four bills.

The redistricting plan adopted following the 2010 U.S. Census moved Gusciora's hometown of Princeton Borough out of the 15th district and into the heavily-Republican 16th. Gusciora immediately announced that he would put his Princeton home on the market and move to Trenton, some 12 miles (19 km) away. Trenton was the largest city in the old 15th district and remained the largest city in the newly configured 15th district.

Gusciora has been the Deputy Majority Leader since 2008, and was the Assembly's Assistant Minority Leader from 1998-2001. He currently serves as Chairman of the Assembly Regulatory Oversight, Federal Relations, and Reform Committee, and is a member of the Assembly Financial Institutions and Insurance and Assembly Labor Committees. He is a former Chairman of the Environment and Solid Waste Committee.

Gusciora is a supporter of gay rights and same-sex marriage. In December 2006, he publicly acknowledged his homosexuality, thereby becoming the first ever openly gay member of the New Jersey Legislature. In January 2012, he was joined by Assemblyman Tim Eustace, the openly gay mayor of Maywood, who was elected to the General Assembly from the 38th District.

In 1995, Gusciora beat Joseph Constance, a former Mercer County Freeholder and deputy police chief of Trenton Police Department, who received support from the National Rifle Association and campaigned against New Jersey's teachers' union. At the time, Republicans outnumbered Democrats 53 to 27 in the New Jersey State Legislature, and Constance received the momentum of the State's shift towards moderate Republicanism under popular Governor Christine Todd Whitman. Gusciora's victory maintained New Jersey's 15th Legislative District as a Democratic stronghold.

Gusciora was born in Passaic, New Jersey and raised in Jamesburg, where he attended public schools and graduated from Jamesburg High School in 1978. He received a B.A. from The Catholic University of America (CUA) in Politics/International Relations and was awarded a J.D. in 1988 from the Seton Hall University School of Law. He was, for much of his adult life, a resident of Princeton Borough.

Walter Reed Gusciora (born March 27, 1960) is an American Democratic Party politician who has served as the Mayor of Trenton, New Jersey since 2018. He previously served from 1996 to 2018 in the New Jersey General Assembly, where he represented the 15th Legislative District. He also served as the prosecutor for Lawrence Township. He defeated businessman Paul Perez to become Mayor of Trenton in 2018, earning 52 percent of the vote in a runoff election on June 12 since no candidate won the 50 percent threshold or more in the May 8 election.