The Seventh District includes the most Democratic-leaning towns of largely Republican Burlington County, as well as the Democratic strongholds of Merchantville and Pennsauken in Camden County. Pennsauken, with 35,737 residents, and Willingboro, with 33,008, are the largest municipalities as reported in the 2000 US Census. The district has a relatively large percentage of African-American voters, led by Willingboro, where some two-thirds of residents were African American in the 2000 Census. Over 20 percent of the population is African American in Beverly, Burlington City, Burlington Township, Edgewater Park, Mount Holly, Pennsauken and Westampton. Property values and incomes are generally low when compared to the New Jersey averages yet the total tax rate is quite high, a trait the district shares with many of the districts surrounding it. See New Jersey Legislative District Data Book, Center for Government Services, Rutgers University.
Although Democrats do very well in most local elections, this demographically and politically diverse district is currently represented by Republican Senator Diane Allen, a media producer and former TV news anchor, and two Democratic Assemblymen, Herbert Conaway, Jr., a physician in private practice from Delanco who ran unsuccesfully for Congress in 2005 against 3rd District incumbent Republican Jim Saxton, and Jack Conners, a retired banker and banking consultant from Pennsauken. All three incumbents were first elected in 1997. In the 2008-09 session, Senator Allen is Deputy Minority Leader; Assemblyman Conners is chair of the Military and Veterans' Affairs Committee and a member of the committees on Financial Institutions and Insurance and Assemblyman Conaway is chair of the Health and Senior Services Committee.
In the 2007 election, Senator Allen was re-elected, defeating Richard Dennison, a 30-year-old undertaker and lawyer in Florence who was an intern in the White House during President Clinton's administration. The Democratic incumbents also were re-elected in 2009 over Republicans Brian Propp, a former Philadelphia Flyers hockey star who is now a Flyers broadcaster, and Nancy Griffin, a Willingboro attorney. Senator Allen briefly considered a run in 2008 for the seat being vacated by Congressman James Saxton, but declined to enter the race, partly due to splits in the Burlington County Republican organization.
The district includes the historic City of Burlington, founded in 1677 by Quakers which served as the capital of the Province of West Jersey during the colonial period. Its prominent residents have included William Franklin, the illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin and the last Royal governor of New Jersey; Elias Boudinot, the president of the Continental Congress who signed the Treaty of Paris in 1783 officially recognizing the independence of the American colonies; and James Fenimore Cooper, author of The Last of the Mohicans, Leatherstocking Stories, and other books about the American Wilderness.
In the nineteenth century, Burlington and Mount Holly were key stops on the Underground Railroad, the network run by abolitionists and others providing lodging, food and transportation to aid escaped slaves from the South on their way to Canada.
During the Civil War, the wife and children of General and later President Ulysses S. Grant resided in Burlington, and Grant visited them in their house before the Battles of Vicksburg and Wilderness. On April 14, 1865, Grant declined Abraham Lincoln's invitation to join the President in attending a performance at Ford's Theatre, informing the President that he was departing Washington with his wife to visit his children in Burlington. On his way to New Jersey, Grant received a telegram at midnight in Philadelphia advising that Lincoln had been shot; the General then proceeded to escort his wife home to Burlington, returning to Washington the next morning on a special train from Philadelphia for Washington departing at 6:00 AM, shortly prior to the announcement of Lincoln's death.
Willingboro was incorporated as Wellingborough in 1688, originally extending west to the Delaware River and including present day Beverly, Edgewater Park, and Delanco townships, along with Rancocas Village. In 1954, low-cost housing developer William Levitt started to buy land and by 1956 had acquired 90 percent of the township, with the boundaries of the township subsequently re-drawn by an Act of the New Jersey State legislature, including shifting Rancocas Village to become part of Westampton. In 1959, by a margin of 80 votes, residents through a referendum changed the name of the township from Wellingborough to Levittown, but the name was changed once more in 1963 by another referendum adopting the current name of Willingboro.
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