Brian D. Levine

Who is Brian D. Levine?

Brian D. Levine is the mayor of Franklin Township, in Somerset County, New Jersey, a community with more than 60,000 residents.

A Republican, Levine has been elected to the mayoralty three times, in a municipality with a heavy Democratic advantage in voter registration. A large majority of the Township Council, which includes the mayor as its chairman, is Democratic.

Levine, a CPA, was first elected mayor in 2003 and was re-elected in 2007 and 2011. He held a Township Council seat prior to his election as mayor. Levine is the first and so far the only directly elected mayor in the history of Franklin Township, which previously had a mayor chosen from among the other Township Council members. The mayor's duties, under the council-manager form of government, are primarily to lead the legislative branch of the local government, the Township Council, while the appointed township manager is the community's chief executive officer.

In 2009, Levine was briefly a long-shot candidate for the Republican nomination for Governor of New Jersey. He was removed from the ballot along with two other candidates when it was determined that the candidates had an insufficient number of valid signatures on their nominating petitions. He later endorsed Chris Christie, who went on to win the Republican primary.