TRENTON — An animal rights group has filed a complaint against a pro-hunting political action committee, claiming it violated campaign contribution limits last year by holding a rally for then-gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie. Stu Chaifetz, an investigator for the group Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK), also filed a complaint against Christie for not reporting the rally as an...
Gov. Christie during a November press conference.TRENTON — An animal rights group has filed a complaint against a pro-hunting political action committee, claiming it violated campaign contribution limits last year by holding a rally for then-gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie.
Stu Chaifetz, an investigator for the group Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK), also filed a complaint against Christie for not reporting the rally as an in-kind contribution. He alleged the group used its political clout to encourage the state to host a bear hunt this year.
Chaifetz said the group, the New Jersey Outdoor Alliance, spent $15,000 on the October, 2009 event in New Egypt through its continuing political committee — including billboards, flyers and t-shirts that all prominently mentioned Christie. The rally, he said, was to promote Chris Christie — not just to support an issue.
“This was all beyond the $3,400 limit that a PAC is allowed to spend on a candidate for governor,” said Chaifetz.
A billboard at the “Rescue Our Outdoors Rally” prominently displays the group’s name, and includes in much smaller letters “with special guest Chris Christie.”
The following month, after Christie won election, he appointed New Jersey Outdoor Alliance’s leader, Anthony Mauro, to his environmental protection transition team. Mauro said he believe there is “no question” that Mauro helped influence the administration’s policy to support a controversial bear hunt this year.
Two other anti-hunting groups, the Bear Education And Resource Group and the Animal Protection League of New Jersey, filed an appeal today in superior courts in Mercer and Hudson to block the six-day bear hunt. It is scheduled to begin Dec. 6 in seven northwest New Jersey counties.
Dorris Lin, an attorney for the groups, said the state’s decision to have the bear hunt — which occurred in 2003 and 2005 — was based on faulty scientific data about population numbers and bear sightings. She said the Division of Fish and Wildlife double-counted many bear complaints, after neighbors reported seeing the same bear in their neighborhoods.
“I’m very confident that the policy is flawed,” said Lin. “As far as how confident we are that the hunt will be stopped, I really can’t say.”
Mauro and a spokesman for Gov. Chris Christie could not immediately be reached for comment.