'Another day wasted'; N.J. shutdown to continue Monday

"Another day wasted" is how a top lawmaker described efforts Sunday to end New Jersey's government shutdown, whose impact is likely to be felt even more widely Monday with the furloughing of as many as 35,000 state workers and the suspension of most services in state courts, Motor Vehicle Commission offices and other state venues.

With all non-essential services and functions halted across the state amid a political impasse over the fiscal year 2018 budget, Gov. Chris Christie and the Legislature's two top Democrats once again hosted competing news conferences on Sunday full of demands but few signs of progress.

Senate President Stephen Sweeney, who had declared Sunday "wasted" as of 2:30 p.m., even claimed that his requests for meetings with Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto and the CEO of Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, the man and the company at the center of the shutdown, were being ignored.

"We’re not going to accomplish anything unless we get in a room and talk," Sweeney said after publicly demanding that Horizon CEO Bob Marino meet with him in the State House on Monday. Marino later said he would attend.

Christie, meanwhile, arrived in Trenton on Sunday on a taxpayer-funded state police helicopter that he had taken from the governor's official retreat at Island Beach State Park, where his family has been staying over the weekend even though the park is closed to the public as part of the shutdown.

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During an afternoon news conference at which he said Marino has an “absolute obligation” to meet with Sweeney to try to hammer out a compromise, Christie also told reporters he intended to fly back to the park later Sunday. 

“I traveled there and I traveled back and I’ll travel back again by helicopter,” he said. “That’s where my family is sleeping, so that’s where I’ll sleep tonight. When I have a choice between sleeping with my family or sleeping alone, I generally like to sleep where my family is.”

A round-trip helicopter ride Christie took from the Trenton area to his son's baseball game in Montvale in 2011 cost $2,500, which was split between Christie and the state Republican Party. But taxpayers typically pick up the cost of the governor's routine travel in the helicopter. 

How we got here

The government shutdown, the first in more than a decade, began Saturday after feuding factions in the Democratic-controlled Legislature could not reach a deal to send Christie a $34.7 billion budget for his signature. The New Jersey Constitution requires that a budget be signed into law by July 1, and the impasse prompted Christie to close government. 

Christie, a Republican, and Sweeney, a Democrat, have agreed on a budget deal that includes two pieces of legislation the governor favors, but Prieto, also a Democrat, has dug in against one of the bills.

Splitting leadership:Democratic leaders sharply divided over Christie's Horizon demands

The bill Prieto dislikes would change how the state regulates Horizon, the state's largest insurer, potentially allowing the state to tap the company's reserves to pay for public health programs like drug treatment. Prieto is aligned with Horizon and says the bill would likely result in rate increases for the insurer's 3.8 million customers.

Prieto has already signed off on the other bill Christie wants, which would shift lottery revenue to the state's fiscally troubled public employee pension system. But thus far, he has refused to post the Horizon bill for a vote.

Instead, Prieto has opened a vote on the Democrats' $34.7 billion budget and has left the voting board open since Friday night. With about half the Democrats in the Assembly siding with Christie and Sweeney, however, Prieto lacks the 41 votes needed to pass the budget. Those Democrats are willing to support the Horizon legislation in exchange for Christie's assurance that he'll sign a budget that includes an extra $350 million for their party's priorities. 

Christie has said he will sign any budget that lands on his desk but will veto out the extra spending if the Legislature doesn’t also send him the lottery and Horizon bills. 

Either way, Christie's signature on a budget would authorize the state to spend money and thereby end the shutdown.

A way out?

Reaching a compromise on the Horizon bill that is palatable to both Prieto and Christie could be key to breaking the deadlock. 

Prior to Sunday, Prieto was adamant that the Horizon bill should not be tied to the budget, arguing that he had already compromised with Christie enough by agreeing to pass the lottery legislation.

On Sunday, Prieto maintained that he wouldn’t allow a Horizon bill to pass before a budget is passed. But he said he is working with some Assembly members to explore compromise legislation that the Legislature could consider immediately after a budget is passed, adding that he may support a bill that caps the company's reserves and returns any excess to ratepayers.

"I look forward to the dialogue," Prieto said.

Prieto said he also had an appointment to speak with Marino on Monday morning, and both men confirmed they would meet with Sweeney on Monday afternoon.

"Horizon’s CEO Bob Marino will absolutely attend the meeting and looks forward to hearing how our concerns and the concerns voiced by New Jersey’s business, labor, and reform communities can be addressed, particularly with all the uncertainty about health care coming from Washington," a Horizon spokesman said in a statement.

Christie provided another way out of the stalemate Sunday when he said he is “open to considering another piece of legislation in place of Horizon."

But two pieces of legislation that have been floated as alternatives — one to allow governments to forgo publishing legal notices in newspapers and another to cap payouts to public employees for unused sick time — are both politically unpalatable to many lawmakers and were rejected by Democratic members of the Assembly at a caucus meeting on Friday.

On Sunday, Prieto criticized Christie for even floating the idea.

"So if you’re telling me that he’ll take something else, then what’s the big deal with Horizon?" he said.

Shortly after 5 p.m. Sunday, Christie announced that he would again reconvene the Legislature on Monday morning "to consider the ongoing budget impasse."

“This is more about egos than policy now," Sweeney said Sunday, "and the egos got to get checked at the door, mine included.”

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