John S. Watson (New Jersey politician) served as Chairman of the Assembly Appropriations Committee. The John S. Watson Institute for Public Policy located at the Rudolph V. Kuser Mansion on the campus of Thomas Edison State College in Trenton, New Jersey is named in his honor. His daughter Bonnie Watson Coleman went on to serve in what was once his Assembly seat. She is now a member of the United States House of Representatives. John S. Watson (New Jersey politician) John S. Watson (August 14, 1924 – June 15, 1996) was an African-American Democratic Party politician who served six terms in the New Jersey General Assembly,
James S. Watson and, together with Charles E. Toney, also elected that year, thus became one of the first two black judges in New York state. He served as a judge until his retirement in 1950. He faced a particularly tough re-election campaign in 1940 when Tammany Hall denied Watson the position of Democratic nominee in spite of Watson's being endorsed by the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. Tammany Hall eventually relented and Watson was given the nomination and won re-election by a margin of nine-to-one. In 1943, Watson was the first African American to become a new