Christie shuts down New Jersey government
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie ordered the first state government shutdown in more than 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 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 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 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 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 the Observer reported 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.