MORRISTOWN – He’s tired of the two party system and thinks other people are too, and Peter Rodino might be too – if he were still around..

That’s why Martin A. Hewitt wants to challenge U.S. Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-11) next year – as an independent.

“Peter Rodino once told me I should run for Congress,” said the bow-tied attorney from East Brunswick, who had the late Democratic Congressman from Newark – chairman of the congressional committee that conducted hearings on Watergate – as a law professor.

“I think that the party system specializes in presenting candidates who promise the moon and then don’t deliver,” Hewitt told InsiderNJ on the bullhorn-reverberating sidewalk outside Frelinghuysen’s district office this morning. “Anyone can promise the moon. The fact is, at the end of the day, these people are beholden to their parties and their parties’ establishments. I want to represent the  voters.”

He doesn’t live in the 11th, but he said that’s about to change.

“I have to move to the district, and I’m looking right now,” Hewitt told InsiderNJ.

But is he definitely in?

“Oh, I’m doing it,” he promised, referring to a 2018 run.

Congressman Rodino served as the U.S. Congressman from Newark from 1949-1989. The late U.S. Rep. Donald Payne (D-10) succeeded Mr. Rodino as the city’s representative. The legal scholar said in remarks during the Watergate hearings, “I as the chairman deal in a simple principle: the principle that the law must deal fairly with every man. For me, this is the oldest principle of democracy.”