{"id":40802236026,"date":"2012-06-01T14:53:00","date_gmt":"2012-06-01T18:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/2012\/06\/01\/what-the-harris-defeat-means-for-christie\/"},"modified":"2021-01-25T11:22:05","modified_gmt":"2021-01-25T16:22:05","slug":"what-the-harris-defeat-means-for-christie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/2012\/06\/01\/what-the-harris-defeat-means-for-christie\/","title":{"rendered":"What the Harris Defeat Means for Christie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at\u00a0PolitickerNJ<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

New Jersey Senate President Steve Sweeney sent Gov. Chris Christie a very clear message yesterday.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t about the defeated Supreme Court nominee Bruce Harris or even the Court itself.\u00a0 It was about the balance of power within the State House.<\/p>\n

Ever since the calendar turned to 2012, legislative Democrats \u2013 specifically the leadership who worked closely with the Republican governor in his first two years \u2013 have looked for every opportunity to make life uncomfortable for Chris Christie.<\/p>\n

Part of this has to do with turning their attention to their own political ambitions \u2013 be it a run for Governor in 2013 or U.S. Senate in 2014.\u00a0 Indeed, the governor himself has clearly switched to re-election mode, with Exhibit A being a tax cut proposal based on projected revenue growth that would have to outpace the Chinese economy.<\/p>\n

While the next election is certainly a driving force in the Democrats\u2019 increasing opposition to Christie, there is something more basic at work.\u00a0 They\u2019re ticked off at what they see as shabby treatment by the governor.<\/p>\n

There are only so many times the governor can take the rhetorical bat out on you before it sticks.\u00a0 Senator Sweeney\u2019s final straw came last year when the governor caught his legislative compadre<\/em> unawares on line-item vetoes.\u00a0 The sense was that the governor understood the Democrats needed to pass their own alternative budget to save political face.\u00a0 And that the leadership would be given the opportunity, behind closed doors, to protect specific items from the red pen, while the governor could still claim to have sliced the Democrats\u2019 budget.\u00a0 Christie was having none of that.<\/p>\n

So this year, the Democrats embarked on a new tactic, forcing the governor to go on the record with a gay marriage veto and pushing for their own version(s) of a tax cut.\u00a0 They made it clear that they would not approve Phillip Kwon\u2019s nomination in March and let the governor know it.\u00a0 That gave Christie the opportunity to rail that \u201cthe fix was in\u201d before the process even started and that it was the Democrats, not him, who had politicized the process.<\/p>\n

With the Harris nominations, the Democrats appear to have closed ranks and did not inform the governor beforehand.\u00a0 They did not want to give him the same ammunition, even though it was clear to anyone at the hearing that the die had already been cast.\u00a0 In fact, Senator Sweeney\u2019s presence throughout the hearing sent the clear message that he was fully behind what transpired.<\/p>\n

At the end of the hearing, a number of Democratic Judiciary Committee members said that their decision was about partisan balance \u2013 the unwritten tradition that no more than four members of the Supreme Court belong to the same party.<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t really about partisan balance on the Court, it was about \u201cChristie balance\u201d between the executive and legislative branches. \u00a0Ever since the governor announced his choice of Kwon as the first Asian-American nominee and Harris as the first openly gay nominee, there was a palpable sense in Trenton that Christie was daring the legislature to shoot them down.\u00a0 Well, they did.\u00a0 Both sides played partisan politics.<\/p>\n

By the way, if Governor Christie truly wants to challenge the Democrats, how about nominating two sitting judges with clear records of jurisprudence, who just happen to be Republicans? \u00a0I disagree with the Democrats\u2019 view that Justice Jaynee LaVecchia should be \u201ccounted\u201d as a Republican.\u00a0 But putting up two known, well-qualified judges would make it clear that a refusal to approve would be purely partisan on the Democrats\u2019 part.<\/p>\n

During the hearing, Sen. Jen Beck remarked that Harris\u2019s bond experience would bring some fresh perspective to the bench. Wouldn\u2019t appointing Justices with a track record of appellate rulings bring an equally fresh perspective to the current Court?\u00a0 Just a thought.<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, all this intrigue is \u201cinside Trenton\u201d stuff.\u00a0 The public doesn\u2019t follow Supreme Court nominations and so it will have no direct impact on the governor\u2019s positive approval rating.\u00a0 However, the message that the Harris vote sends is that the Democratic leadership grows more and more willing to take on the Governor.\u00a0 This could have a major public impact if this new approach continues throughout the budget process.<\/p>\n

Gov. Christie still has very powerful tools on his side, namely the bully pulpit and the veto pen.\u00a0 You still have to give him the edge in a battle of wills with the legislature.\u00a0 But Sen. Sweeney and his fellow Democrats are finding ways to make life increasingly difficult.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at\u00a0PolitickerNJ New Jersey Senate President Steve Sweeney sent Gov. Chris Christie a very clear message yesterday.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t about the defeated Supreme Court nominee Bruce Harris or even the Court itself.\u00a0 It was about the balance of power within the State House. Ever since the calendar turned to 2012, legislative Democrats \u2013 specifically the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":939,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40802236026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802236026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/939"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40802236026"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802236026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40802244203,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802236026\/revisions\/40802244203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40802236026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40802236026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40802236026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}