Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ)
A New Jersey judge is saying "enough" to Gov. Chris Christie's pension theft. Christie made big headlines in 2011 for "pension reform" that would require New Jersey's public workers to pay more toward their pensions, but would supposedly involve the state paying its share after years of underfunding the pensions. Since then, the workers have continued to pay their increased share. And Christie has broken the promise on which he made his name.
In 2014, Christie cut the state's pension contribution from $1.6 billion to $696 million, saying "Promises were made that can't be kept ... Welcome to the real world, folks." Christie then announced that in this year's budget, he would include $1.3 billion for the pension, rather than the $2.9 billion the state owed. But, in a decision released Monday, State Superior Court Judge Mary C. Jacobson:
... called the governor’s move “an apparent about-face” to the laws he signed — laws, she noted, he had called his “biggest governmental victory” and a “bold” bipartisan effort to “save” the pension systems while also “providing real, long-term fiscal stability for future generations of New Jerseyans.”
“The governor,” she wrote, “now takes the unusual position in this court of claiming that this legislative contractual guarantee, which embodied significant reforms for which he took substantial credit with great national fanfare, violates the New Jersey Constitution.”
Judge Jacobson’s opinion found that the “clear intent” of the statutes “was to insulate the state contributions into the pension funds from the vicissitudes of the political process.”
The Christie administration responded by blustering about "liberal judicial activism," ignoring that Jacobson was appointed by former Republican Gov. Christie Todd Whitman and that Jacobson was just holding Christie to his own law.
Meanwhile, the New Jersey Education Association—i.e. the teachers Christie so loves to target—has said it is working with Christie to find pension solutions. Here's a pension solution: Chris Christie can find a way for the state to contribute what it owes. This is not some gift the state gives, it's a negotiated part of public workers' pay, in which they accept lower wages during their working years in exchange for security in retirement. Call it keeping your promises, call it responsible governance, all Christie is being asked to do here is follow his own law. New Jersey's teachers and other public workers have already done their share. It's time for the state to step up and do the bare f'ing minimum.