William E. Schluter

Who is William E. Schluter?

William Everett "Bill" Schluter is an American Republican Party politician from New Jersey, who served in both houses of the New Jersey Legislature.

Schluter was born on November 5, 1927 in Bronxville, New York to Frederic E. and Charlotte M. Schluter. He grew up in Lawrence Township, Mercer County, New Jersey and attended Phillips Exeter Academy and Princeton University. In 1950 he married Nancy Albright Hurd. They settled in Pennington, New Jersey.

Schluter was elected to the Pennington City Council in 1963 and served for six years. He was a delegate to the 1964 Republican National Convention. In 1967 he was elected to the New Jersey General Assembly and was reelected in 1969.

In 1971, in a newly reapportioned legislative district combining parts of Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex and Morris Counties, Schluter was elected to the New Jersey Senate. But Schluter lost the seat in 1973 to Anne Clark Martindell, as Democrats took control of the State Legislature in the wake of the Watergate scandal.

In 1976 Schluter ran for a seat in the United States House of Representatives against the Democratic incumbent, Helen Stevenson Meyner, who, like Martindell, had won in a Republican-leaning district in the aftermath of Watergate. In the hotly contested race, Meyner defeated Schluter by a narrow margin. In 1978 Schluter ran for the House seat again but lost in the Republican primary to Jim Courter, who went on to defeat Meyner in the general election.