Thomas H. Kean, Jr.

Republican | Senate Republican Leader

Senator Thomas H. Kean, Jr. represents District 21, which includes 16 towns in Morris, Somerset, and Union counties. He was re-elected Senate Minority Leader by his peers for the 2020-2021 Legislative Session. He has served as Leader since 2008. The senator sits on the Senate Higher Education, the Legislative Oversight Committee, and the Select Committee on New Jersey Transit. He is the Senate appointee to the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the New Jersey Israel Commission, the Legislative Services Commission, and the New Jersey Amistad Commission. Prior to being named to the upper house of the State Legislature in January 2003 to fill a vacancy, Senator Kean was serving his second term in the State Assembly, where he had been Chairman of the Assembly Republican Policy Committee. Senator Kean was nominated and selected for the inaugural class of the Rodel Fellowship program by The Aspen Institute, and was named one of only 40 state leaders from the entire nation to be recognized as a Toll Fellow by the Council of State Governments for high achievement and service to state government.

He is an Honorary Member of the Board of Trustees of the Paper Mill Playhouse and the New Jersey Festival Orchestra. Senator Kean graduated from Dartmouth College. He received his M.A.L.D. in international relations at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where he was also employed as a Graduate School instructor. The Senator served in Congressman Bob Frank’s office in Washington, DC; worked for the Environmental Protection Agency during the George H. W. Bush administration; and is a former volunteer firefighter and Emergency Medical Technician. He lives in Westfield with his wife and two daughters.