Christie links veto threat to appointees

TRENTON - If Democrats fail to approve dozens of his appointees awaiting confirmation, Gov. Christie said Monday, he will veto board minutes of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority and other agencies.

Christie, who took office in January, said about 30 of his appointees already were awaiting confirmation by the state Senate before more than two dozen additional names were submitted Monday. Democrats control both houses of the Legislature.

"If I don't start to get my people on these boards, I'm just going to start vetoing," Christie said in an interview at the Statehouse. "I think I've been pretty patient."

Christie also said he expected to receive within two weeks potential strategies for reducing state pension benefits for teachers and public officials.

He expects to announce in the third week of September a plan to replenish the Transportation Trust Fund, which is $11 billion in debt and unable to continue supporting a $1.6 billion annual program of highway and mass-transit improvements.

The governor said he would not raise taxes to pay for pensions or to refinance the highway fund.

"The last thing you'd want to do is raise taxes and make the New Jersey economy less competitive," he said.

Christie's power to veto minutes of state panels would not force them to halt day-to-day operations. Vetoes would cancel their ability to enter into contracts and professional-services agreements, and "potentially" affect their ability to issue bonds, the governor said.

Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D., Gloucester) said that Christie's nominations had been held up for technical reasons and that the Senate would take them up now that he and the governor had returned from vacations.

"I don't think the governor could possibly expect to get all his nominees in the day he makes them," Sweeney said in an interview in his Trenton office, where he was reviewing a four-page list of Christie's most recent nominees.

Christie said he was concerned that the Senate's failure to approve his candidates had left him responsible for the actions of boards that were filled with appointees of previous governors.

He said the nominees awaiting action included one Port Authority candidate, three nominees to the Turnpike Authority, and two at the South Jersey Transportation Authority, which manages the Atlantic City Expressway.

"This is just a wholesale refusal to move things," Christie said.