Christie has been reticent to criticize Democratic allies
Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo Jr., left, laughs with Gov. Chris Christie and Lt. Gov. Guadagno after he received the The North Ward Center's St. Patrick's/St. Joseph's Celebration Italian of The Year Award on March 25.NEWARK — Once a year, New Jersey’s powerful gather at the North Ward Center, the castle-like Newark headquarters of Steve Adubato Sr.’s political empire. They jam into the building’s ground floor to rub shoulders, trade barbed jokes and eat Italian and Irish food in a joint celebration of St. Joseph’s and St. Patrick’s days.
More than a week ago, this rite of passage also showcased a conspicuous alliance that is reshaping New Jersey’s political landscape. Gov. Chris Christie, the Republican bulldog, delighted the buzzing crowd with his appearance in this fortified Democratic stronghold.
And no one seemed more delighted than his Democratic ally Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo Jr., who slipped away from the main event to be the first to welcome the governor. In his speech afterward, Christie joked that DiVincenzo was with him “right from day one.” In return, DiVincenzo kidded about jockeying to be lieutenant governor — on Christie’s ticket.
Less than a week later, The Star-Ledger revealed DiVincenzo was simultaneously collecting a pension and a paycheck for the same job thanks to a loophole in state law. It’s a practice Christie himself wants stopped — but the governor has stayed quiet except to say he wants the law changed.
A look at his first year in office shows Christie has cozied up to politicians who don’t always practice what he preaches. Although he attacks teachers, cops and bureaucrats for various abuses, he goes silent when his allies are caught in their own controversies — especially Democrats whose help he needs on New Jersey’s political battlefield.
“There’s obviously double standards,” Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) said.
Christie has also criticized the fading practice of holding two elected offices — but relies on votes in the Legislature from Sen. Brian Stack (D-Hudson), who doubles as the Union City mayor. In February, the governor said he has “great confidence in Brian Stack and his integrity” after his ex-wife was caught driving a municipal car and gassing up for free.
In a state where Republican power players are few and far between, Christie needs support from key members of the opposing party to push a costcutting agenda that some Democrats have long resisted.
“When the other side has the majority, and virtually everyone who has been in power in the last 10 years is tainted in some way, you have to work with them for the greater good,” Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth) said. “We can beat up Joe D all day long for the next six months. And it doesn’t fix New Jersey.”
Spokesman Michael Drewniak said Christie realizes that his proposals go nowhere without Democratic support.
“It’s obvious that if he didn’t have those relationships and nurture them, nothing would get done in Trenton,” he said. “New Jersey is sick of the kind of pure partisanship that results in stalemate or the status quo.”
PENSION BENEFITS
Christie has worked closely with DiVincenzo on rolling back pension benefits. Earlier this year, the county executive said, “The bank is broken, and the time has come to put everything on the table.”
DiVincenzo’s nonretirement retirement let him tack a $68,862 annual pension to his $153,207 salary, and public employee unions called him a hypocrite.
"It’s an egregious abuse of the pension system,” New Jersey Education Association president Barbara Keshishian said.
DiVincenzo said he did nothing wrong, adding he’s only trying to take care of his family. He said he’s following a law that lets public employees retire while still holding elected office as long as they previously held a different public job.
“I wasn’t trying to hide something,” he said. “I filed my papers like everyone else.”
Drewniak dismissed Democrats’ criticisms, pointing out that Christie-backed bills to change the law have sat untouched in the Democrat-controlled Legislature.
“You have deeply partisan Democrats leaping at the chance to criticize one of their own moderate voices for taking advantage of a legal loophole they’ve turned a blind eye to for years,” he said. “For them to point at that now, that’s hypocrisy.”
Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union) said Christie is selectively choosing whom to criticize.
“If you’re on his side, he’s not going to call you out on anything,” he said. “If you’re not on his side, for the slightest of matters he’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks.”
GIVE AND TAKE
Gov. Chris Christie, left, listens as North Ward democratic boss Steve Adubato Sr. whispers into his ear during the 37th Annual St. Pat's/St. Joe's event March 25 at the North Ward Center.Christie and his Democratic allies don’t hesitate to scratch each other’s backs in public.
Stack introduced Christie in February in Union City as “the greatest governor this state has ever had.” Christie said Stack is “my ally and friend today, and he will be my ally and friend tomorrow and every day that I’m governor.”
DiVincenzo presented Christie with a lion’s bust during Italian-American Heritage Month, and the governor returned to Newark to swear him in to his third term as county executive. (At that point, Di-Vincenzo had already been “retired” for five months.) The affection can translate into dollars. The Christie administration fully funded Union City’s $13 million request for financial aid set aside for struggling towns. It also allowed the city to use $1.7 million of that money for tax credits that Christie had canceled. Stack downplayed his relationship with Christie, saying, “I’m not even sure the governor knows about this.”
The Department of Community Affairs said state lawyers approved it, but a legal opinion from the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services later said it was an improper use of state money.
Last year, Stack was one of the only Democrats to vote for Christie’s budget, which sharply cut state aid to towns and schools.
“I hope that the governor is not using taxpayer money to reward friends and supporters,” Weinberg said. “That would be completely inappropriate.”
Meanwhile, DiVincenzo has often turned to the Christie administration for money for parks and schools. “We did well under (former Gov. Jon) Corzine,” he said. “And we’re even doing much better now under the governor.”
Christie first gave DiVincenzo a helping hand during his 2002 county executive campaign, when DiVincenzo’s primary opponent tried to tie him to the federal probe that sent his predecessor to prison. Christie, then the state’s U.S. attorney, wrote a letter saying DiVincenzo “is not a subject or target of the grand jury investigation.” Such letters are rarely dished out.
“Am I appreciative? Yes,” DiVincenzo said. “But it has nothing to do with what’s going on today.”
A VINTAGE STRATEGY
Gov. Chris Christie, left, talks to U.S. Congressman Steve Rothman (D NJ-9) as North Ward democratic boss Steve Adubato Sr., center, stands by at the 37th Annual St. Pat's/St. Joe's event at the North Ward Center on March 25.Democrats working with Christie couch their relationship in the language of postpartisanship. “I’ve never been about party politics,” Stack said. “People are tired of the Republican-Democrat thing.”
But it’s also classic politics. Democrats from poor areas rely on state coffers the governor controls for basic services like schools and police. And because Republicans are a minority in the Legislature, Christie uses Democrats to isolate and circumvent opposition.
Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex) — whose second job is working for Di-Vincenzo in county government — said politicians are forced to go along to get along because the governor wields tremendous power.
“He possesses the whole bag of marbles,” she said. “The only way many local governments are going to survive is through the benevolence of state government.”
Rutgers politics professor David Redlawsk pointed to former President Bill Clinton’s strategy of “triangulation” as a template. As Christie forms alliances with individual Democrats, he inches forward his agenda while sowing turmoil in the opposing party.
“It’s smart of Christie to play that game,” Redlawsk said. “As long as he can keep Democrats off balance, and they have a hard time putting together a strategy against him, it may give him a better shot in the fall,” when Republicans try to retake the state Legislature.
Political observers say Christie has alternatively befriended and beguiled Democrats, leaving his opposition scrambling for footing in a critical election year.
“He understands politics enough to know it’s a self-interested endeavor,” said Tom Wilson, former chairman of the state Republican Party. “It’s unmasked that, at the end of the day, everyone is on their own side.”