John S. Watson Institute for Public Policy between partners, practitioners, other interested parties in specific policy areas. Through these efforts. Initial support for The Watson Institute came from the college's operating funds, with further funds from major foundations and corporations. John S. Watson Institute for Public Policy The John S. Watson Institute for Public Policy is an American non-partisan research institute on public policy located at Thomas Edison State College in Trenton, New Jersey. The Institute is named after New Jersey Assemblyman John S. Watson, the first African American to serve as the state's Chairman of the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Thomas Edison State College established the institute
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