Tag: Chris Christie

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New Jersey lawmakers to attempt override of marriage equality veto by Gov. Christie

(image via Memeographs)

New Jersey’s Star-Ledger reports:

The state’s top Democratic lawmakers today urged their Republican counterparts to “vote their conscience” to legalize same-sex marriage, but said some GOP lawmakers won’t do this because they don’t want to cross Gov. Chris Christie.

Senate President Stephen Sweeney said he will hold a vote to override Christie’s veto of a same-sex marriage bill that passed last year, noting that thousands of gay couples in New Jersey will be ineligible for federal benefits unless lawmakers act soon.

But first, Sweeney said, at least a few Republicans have to change their no votes to yes. The Senate president said Christie has intimidated GOP lawmakers, claiming some have privately admitted they would like to change their votes to allow same-sex marriage.

To quash Christie’s veto, Democrats have to muster three more votes in the Senate and 12 more in the Assembly to reach the required two-thirds majority.

(via JMG)

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New Jersey: State Assembly passes “ex-gay” therapy ban

The New Jersey Assembly has approved legislation that would outlaw “ex-gay” therapy by a vote of 56-14.

Passage in the state senate is expected on Thursday.

Governor Chris Christie in March said he opposed the practice of conversion therapy, but on Monday his office declined to comment on whether he would sign or veto the bill.

If enacted, the measure would ban therapists or social workers from performing therapy that aims to change the sexual orientation of patients under age 18.

Currently, California is the only U.S. state to outlaw the practice. But, a federal appeals court has put that law’s implementation on hold while it weighs the issue.

The legislation cites American Psychiatric Association studies that found sexual orientation is determined at birth.

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NJ Gov. Christie names state Attorney to interim US Senate seat

Gov. Chris Christie today named state attorney general Jeffrey Chiesa to fill the Senate seat left vacant by the death of U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg.

Christie’s announcement ended days of intense speculation over whom the Republican governor would appoint to serve nearly five months before voters elect a replacement for the 89-year-old Lautenberg, who died Monday.

New Jersey voters haven’t sent a Republican to the Senate in four decades.

(source)

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NJ: Gov. Christie sets special election dates to fill Senate seat

Gov. Chris Christie has set a special election date of October 16, 2013 to fill the US Senate seat of the recently deceased Sen. Frank Lautenberg.

A primary for each major party will be held August 13, 2013.

“I deem it advisable to have a special election. In fact, I deem it necessary,” he said.

The primary process is needed to give voters a choice, Christie said.

“I will not permit the insiders and a few party elites to determine who the nominee of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party will be,” he said. “A primary election is necessary. The people must choose.”

Christie said that under New Jersey law, he could have named someone to fill the remainder of Launtenberg’s term through 2014, but he chose not to do so.  “I firmly believe that the decisions that need to be made in Washington are too great to be determined by an appointee for a period of 18 months,” he said.

Democrats supported the election be held on the same day as the New Jersey general elections already scheduled a few weeks later November 5th.

The governor said the state will absorb the costs of the special election, estimated by the New Jersey Office of Legislative Services to be about $12 million per election.

Read more at Reuters.

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New Jersey: Possible marriage equality override vote being planned

New Jersey’s legislature is planning votes in both the Senate and Assembly to override Chris Christie’s February 2012 veto of a marriage equality bill that passed both houses there:

Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, an openly gay lawmaker who sponsored the bill in the Assembly, said he met with both Senate President Steve Sweeney and Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald and both men were committed to putting the bill up for an override. The bill did not pass in either house with enough votes to override the governor’s action, but gay rights advocates have been working the phones for a year trying to turn lawmakers in their favor.

The bill passed 24-16 in the Senate and 42-33 in the Assembly. In the Senate, three additional votes are needed to pass an override, while in the Assembly an additional 12 are needed for the two-thirds majority required to override.

“I think we can get the three in the Senate,” he said. “But the Assembly is a different story. I can name five who might switch their vote, but it stops there.”

Sweeney says he would like the override vote to happen after the June primaries so that Republicans would feel safer from retribution from ultra-conservative voters.

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Gov. Chris Christie denounces NRA ad

“To talk about the president’s children or any public officer’s children who have, not by their own choice, but by requirement to have protection and to use that somehow to try to make a poetical point I think is reprehensible. They’ve got real issues to debate on this topic. Get to the real issues.  Don’t be dragging people’s children into this. It’s wrong and I think it demeans them [the NRA] and it makes them less of a valid, trusted source of information on the real issues that confront this debate.” – New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, responding to an ad by the NRA that asked whether President Obama was a hypocrite because his children are protected by armed Secret Service guards

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New Jersey: President Obama tours devastation with Gov. Christie

From MSNBC: President Obama joined Gov. Chris Christie on Wednesday to tour the devastation of Hurricane Sandy that annihilated the New Jersey coastline. The image that emerged was one of bipartisan leadership for both politicians—all in the crucial days before the election.

New Jersey bared much of the brunt of the storm’s wrath, leaving an estimated 2.4 million without power.

The president’s photo-op moment with the Republican governor who headlined the party’s convention this year, comes with just under a week until Election Day. Christie, an ardent critic of Obama and supporter of Mitt Romney, said during the convention that the president was the “most ill-prepared person to assume the presidency in my lifetime.”

Christie, however, exchanged his criticisms for acclaim of the president’s leadership in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Known as a brazen and candid politician, the New Jersey governor lauded Obama with praises saying he had to “give the president great credit.”

“He’s been very attentive, and anything that I’ve asked for, he’s gotten to me. So, I thank the president publicly for that. He’s done—as far as I’m concerned—a great job for New Jersey,” Christie said on Morning Joe Tuesday.

As for a Garden State visit from Romney, the current leader of Christie’s party and the man he’s been on the stump with for months, Christie said he is not the “least bit concerned or interested.”

Romney is now campaigning in Florida after holding political event in Ohio disguised as a “storm relief rally.” Since the storm, Romney has avoided any questions pertaining to his stance on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), an agency he once vowed to level.

Wednesday marks the third day in Obama’s pause from campaigning in what has been called his “commander-in-chief moment,” showing off his leadership in an empathetic light. A similar photo-op for George W. Bush provided the former president a boost to his 2004 re-election efforts with an image of Bush’s consoling bear hug for the grieving young girl whose mother was killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that was brandished in voters’ minds.

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NJ Gov. Christie: “The President has done a great job”

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie declared the devastation from Superstorm Sandy in his state to be a “major disaster” and “devastation,” but he also stated that working with President Obama on securing resources for the state has been “great.”

“The president has been all over this, and he deserves great credit,” Christie said. “He gave me his number at the White House and told me to call him if I needed anything, and he absolutely means it. It’s been very good working with the president and his administration. It’s been wonderful.”

President Obama and the governor spoke three times on Monday, Christie stated.

“He asked me what I needed. I said if he could expedite the Major Disaster Declaration without all the normal FEMA mumbo-jumbo. He got right on it,” added Christie. “I got a call from FEMA at 2 a.m…and then this morning I understand he signed the Major Disaster Declaration for New Jersey.”

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie praises President Obama for his response to Hurricane Sandy at the 6:00 mark.

Note, however, the response the Governor gives to the Fox team when they ask about Mitt Romney at the 2:10 mark. Not a good moment for Fox.