GOVERNOR

Christie closes government in budget fight with top Dem lawmaker

Gov. Chris Christie ordered the first state government shutdown in over a decade Friday night as he and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto remained deadlocked in budget negotiations, fighting over a plan to overhaul the state's largest health insurer.

Christie's executive order, declaring a state of emergency, closes non-essential services around the state. 

“This order is necessary to maintain the protection, safety and well-being of the people of New Jersey while I attempt to convince the Legislature to send me a fiscally responsible budget that I can sign and re-open New Jersey’s government," Christie said in a statement. “This was completely avoidable. But Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto needlessly stalled the budget process, forcing the closure of New Jersey government and inconveniencing everyone living in and visiting our state.”

Christie then called a special joint legislative session on Saturday. He had no plans to speak at the session, his office said.  

"The governor has called the session not to give speeches but to try to work to convince the speaker to reopen the government that the speaker has closed tonight.  The governor will be here early tomorrow to continue to work for the people of New Jersey," spokesman Brian Murray said in a statement. 

While lawmakers work toward an agreement in Trenton, people across New Jersey will be locked out of state parks and beaches, unable to renew their driver's licenses and blocked from processing unemployment claims. 

Lack of agreement in the final days of the fiscal year is nothing new in Trenton. But it was a surprising shift of circumstances that threatened to bring government to a halt, stunning even veterans of the State House. Many Democrats supported the budget agenda of Christie, a Republican, in order to see a spending plan they support signed into law and allow them to break for the summer and begin their legislative re-election campaigns. 

But lawmakers appeared more likely to spend the days heading in to the Fourth of July weekend working toward an agreement that both sides could support. Christie — whose family planned to stay at Island Beach State Park, which will be closed in a shutdown — suggested earlier in the day that he was ready to call the 120-member Legislature back to Trenton this weekend. 

"If my weekend's going to be ruined and the people of New Jersey's weekend is going to be impacted, you can bet for sure that I'm not giving 120 other people the weekend off," Christie said. 

Despite an attempt earlier in the day by Christie to meet with Democratic leaders to discuss the sticking points of the budget plan, the two sides left the governor's office with the same hardened positions they had entering the meeting. Christie said that he was waiting for lawmakers to send him a budget to act on, but Democrats could not agree on what to send him. 

Although Democrats had agreed on a $34.7 billion budget that includes about $350 million more in spending on education and other legislative priorities than what Christie proposed in February, they clashed over the conditions to get the governor to sign it. In exchange for his signature, Christie wants a pair of bills sent to him for approval — a measure to fold the state lottery into the public employee pension system and a proposal that would allow the state access to the reserves of Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield to help pay for drug treatment for the poor and uninsured. 

The Senate has already approved the lottery and Horizon bills. But Prieto is refusing to post the Horizon bill because, he said, it is poor public policy and hasn't been vetted. Christie accused Prieto of hypocrisy Friday, after Observer reported that Prieto had co-sponsored a bill in 2006 that served a purpose similar to what Christie has proposed, to funnel Horizon's reserves to hospitals to offset the cost of charity care. 

Gov. Chris Christie during a press conference on Friday, June 30, 2017. Christie said a deal for the 2018 fiscal year has not been agreed upon and that the New Jersey state government, absent something happening in the next eight hours, is going to shut down.

Prieto, D-Secaucus, said that his support for that bill was a decade ago, and that the current health care debate in Congress have created "uncertain times" that have changed his view. Earlier in the day he said that he won't be "extorted" to agree to a "bad budget deal."

Christie again Friday tried to pin the blame for any government shutdown on Prieto and the Legislature, saying he would take action on any budget that arrives on his desk — with or without a Horizon bill. But if the Legislature sends him a budget without the Horizon and lottery bills, Christie said he would use his power to veto Democratic priorities out of the budget. 

"This is a fit of complete hypocrisy and arrogance by the speaker," he said. "I'm giving them two options for no government shutdown. They're giving me none." 

"You're looking at Mr. Reasonable," he added.

The meeting in Christie's office Friday afternoon included Prieto, Senate President Stephen Sweeney, Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, Assembly Majority Leader Louis Greenwald and the Legislature's two budget chairs, Sen. Paul Sarlo and Assemblyman Gary Schaer.

As Prieto exited the meeting around 3:15 p.m., he reiterated that "Horizon is off the table" but said he'd be willing to consider other legislation Christie wants in exchange for the governor's assurance that he'd sign off on Democratic priorities in the budget.

“I think we’ve done enough but I said I will even look at any other bill for good public policy if that’s one of the things my members want to do to get it done," Prieto said. "Maybe the governor, it will compel him to keep some things in the budget [where] there’s no assurances, I’ll be more than welcome to do that.”

During their caucus meeting Friday afternoon, Assembly Democrats were told by their leadership that Christie was willing to drop his demand for Horizon legislation if instead he got a bill to allow governments to forgo publishing legal notices in newspapers and instead post them exclusively online, according to four people present at the meeting. 

That measure, referred to by critics as the “newspaper revenge bill,” was tabled last year following a backlash from publishers and lawmakers, who also objected to a connected piece of legislation that would have allowed Christie to cash in on a book-publishing deal and give hefty raises to his Cabinet officers, judges and legislative aides.

A “significant” portion of Assembly members refused to support that option, according to the people in attendance. Prieto later confirmed that account, and that Christie had proposed the idea.

Another idea floated in caucus was to swap the Horizon legislation for a bill to cap sick payouts for public workers, but that proposal also fell flat, the legislative sources said.

Prieto said after his meeting with Christie that he'd "entertain" a measure Christie has wanted for years to limit sick pay for public workers. Public employees in many local governments and agencies retire with sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation for unused sick and vacation accumulated through their careers.

Christie said he is "always willing to listen" to counter proposals from the Democratic leaders, but that they "better come with 41 Democratic signatures and 21 Democratic signatures," the number of votes necessary to pass each chamber, "because I'm not buying a pig in the poke." 

Under the state constitution, a budget must be signed into law by midnight June 30. But there was no budget deal in place as the night wore on Friday — just an open vote for the budget at a standstill in the Assembly. 

For the second day in a row, Prieto opened the voting board for Assembly members to cast their votes on the budget. He opened the vote shortly after 7:15 p.m. and left it open for more than five hours lacking the support needed to pass. 

"I will keep it open. I'm here to keep government open," Prieto said. "They should be voting." 

Lawmakers milled around the Assembly floor, ate M&Ms and huddled in conversations with each other at their desks. Prieto sat behind the speaker's rostrum, sometimes on the phone, other times looking out on the floor. But no one was voting and no deal was in sight.

Just before 11 p.m., Prieto appeared to walk back his stance on Horizon slightly.

Asked he'd be willing to listen to a new offer from Christie on Horizon, Prieto said: "We can talk. Anything that comes to me, and then I will make the determination. There hasn't been anything (but) I have all my ears everywhere."

At midnight, Prieto announced that he would keep the voting board open and the Assembly would stay in session. 

"Members will be allowed in any time to change their votes," he said. 

Email: racioppi@northjersey.com and pugliese@northjersey.com