Leanna Brown
| Leanna Brown | |
|---|---|
| Member of the New Jersey Senate from the 26th Legislative District | |
|
In office January 3, 1984 – July 7, 1993 |
|
| Preceded by | James P. Vreeland |
| Succeeded by | Robert Martin |
| Member of the New Jersey General Assembly from the 26th Legislative District | |
|
In office January 3, 1982 – January 3, 1984 |
|
| Preceded by | Richard Codey |
| Succeeded by | Ralph A. Loveys |
| Member of the New Jersey General Assembly from the 24th Legislative District | |
|
In office November 5, 1980 – January 12, 1982 |
|
| Preceded by | Barbara A. Curran |
| Succeeded by | Chuck Haytaian |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Leanna Cawley Young May 11, 1935 Providence, Rhode Island |
| Died | December 15, 2016 (aged 81) Lebanon, New Jersey |
| Political party | Republican |
Leanna Brown (May 11, 1935 – December 15, 2016) was a Republican Party politician in the United States of America. Brown served in both houses of the New Jersey Legislature where she represented the 26th Legislative District, and parts of Morris and Passaic Counties. She was the first Republican woman elected to the New Jersey Senate.
Born Leanna Cawley Young in Providence, Rhode Island, she was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Harold H. Young. Her father was a partner at the New York brokerage firm of Eastman Dillon. She attended the Northfield School for Girls (now part of Northfield Mount Hermon School) in Gill, Massachusetts, graduating in 1952. After graduating from Smith College in 1956, she married William Stanley Brown, who had attended the Mount Hermon School and Yale University and would go on to be a scientist at Bell Labs.
Brown and her husband were longtime residents of Chatham Borough, New Jersey. She spent four years writing test questions for Educational Testing Service outside Princeton, New Jersey before the birth of their two sons. She became active in local politics, serving on the Chatham Borough Council from 1969 to 1972. In 1972 she was elected to serve on the Morris County Board of Chosen Freeholders. She was named freeholder director in 1976 and president of the New Jersey Association of Counties in 1978.
In 1980, she won a special election to an unexpired term in the New Jersey General Assembly, and she was re-elected the following year. In 1983, she challenged her former running-mate, James P. Vreeland, for the Republican nomination for State Senate in the 26th Legislative District. She won the primary in what the Philadelphia Daily News described as a "stunning upset" and was elected to the State Senate, becoming the first woman from the Republican Party to serve in the upper house of the State Legislature.
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