TRENTON — An attempt to override Gov. Chris Christie’s veto of $7.5 million in family planning funds was defeated in the state Senate today, but the Democrats behind the effort vowed to fight on for pared down funding for the program. State Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) and Assemblywoman Linda Stender (D-Union), said they found a new funding source of...
Assembywoman Linda Stender (D) (left) Senator Loretta Weinberg (D) (right) stand together as the Senate begins debate and subsequent vote to override Gov. Gov. Chris Christie's veto of a bill restoring $7.5 million for women's health in Christie's budget during session Monday afternoon.TRENTON — An attempt to override Gov. Chris Christie’s veto of $7.5 million in family planning funds was defeated in the state Senate today, but the Democrats behind the effort vowed to fight on for pared down funding for the program.
State Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) and Assemblywoman Linda Stender (D-Union), said they found a new funding source of $5 million in unspent money that could be devoted to family planning funds. The funds had been set aside in the 2010 budget to pay counties for housing certain prisoners, Weinberg said.
"We asked the governor and his administration to work with us in finding a funding solution, and were shut out time and time again," said Weinberg. "However, through this bill, we will be ablet o find additional surplus funds contained with the Govenror's budget to restore at least a portion of the resources for women's health programs."
Although a majority of the Senate voted today to restore the $7.5 million in a strictly partisan-line vote of 23 to 17, they were short of the two-thirds majority needed to overturn a veto.
“The override failed,” said Sen. President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester).
The vote marked the culmination of a political fight that has dragged on since June, when the state Senate passed a bill restoring the funds cut in Christie’s $29.4 billion budget, 30-10.
At the time, seven Republicans voted with the Democrats to restore the funds: state Sens. Diane Allen (R-Burlington), Jennifer Beck (R-Monmouth), Christopher Connors (R-Ocean), Sean Kean (R-Monmouth) and Robert Singer (R-Ocean). Today, all of them voted against overriding Christie — despite a direct appeal from the bill’s main sponsor, state Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen).
“I would address particularly the seven people across the aisle who voted on our side. This is not an issue of party loyalty. This is not an issue of being loyal to the governor,” she said while looking at the Republicans across the aisle. “This is an issue about women’s health, about poor women, about under-insured women, about women’s access
Democrats accuse Christie of vetoing the bill because he opposes abortion, although they point out that none of the money would go to fund the procedures. Christie has said the state does not have the money, although Democrats and said they found an alternate source of revenue in an overfunded prescription drug program.
Weinberg said she is still determined to get the information the Treasurer said he used to decide the state did not have the money to restore the grant.
Weinberg's original bill would have moved $7.5 million from the prescription drug account for state employees — an amount the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services said would not be spent in the coming year. But Treasurer Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff said the Office was wrong, and there would be no surplus funds in that account.
Weinberg demanded to know how that decision was made and requested the information under the Open Public Records Act. But the records administrator rejected the request, saying the figures used were "unaudited" and not public because they are "advisory and deliberative.''
"They made a policy decision on unaudited figures?'' Weinberg said. "We are prepared to make a big fight over this.''
The money goes to 58 family planning centers across the state. Because of the cut, supporters of the bill said 40,000 low-income women would have to go without services such as birth control and health screenings.
Beck, one of the Republicans who flipped their votes, proposed an alternate bill replacing the funds by increasing health care contributions by legislative and executive branch employees from 1.5 percent of their salaries to 3 percent, and by adding 1 percent for a spouse and another .5 percent for each dependent. Beck said she does not have an exact projection of how much money it would raise, but it would be more than enough to replace the family planning funds.
“I don’t find it responsible to try to spend money that doesn’t exist,” she said.
By Matt Friedman and Susan K. Livio/Statehouse Bureau