By Michael Aron
Chief Political Correspondent
Gov. Chris Christie holds a town hall every week now to push his pension proposal round two.
Yesterday when we pointed out the Legislature has been pretty quiet on it, he said his role is to force a debate and we should talk to the legislative leaders.
“But you know you should talk to the Senate president, the speaker and the minority leaders and ask them what their view on all this is. But I’m going to continue, I’m out there,” Christie said.
When asked how this plan would get through the Legislature, Senate President Steve Sweeney said, “It’s not.”
Sweeney says the governor needs to make a full pension contribution first.
“It starts with paying it, Michael, or finding a way to get as close as possible to paying it. Last year when we did the budget we proved you can make the pension payment. We proved it. He chose not to make it. There’s a big difference between not being able to make it and choosing not to make it,” Sweeney said.
When asked what its prospects are, Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean said, “I’m optimistic.”
Kean says he embraces the governor’s call for a new pension and health benefits system.
When asked if he has put out a press release supporting the plan, Kean said, “I’ve made many statements on the day of the proposal.” When asked if anybody has introduced legislation yet on the governor’s plan, he said, “It’s still early.”
Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto appears to take a dim view of what the governor has laid out.
“Listen, I’m always willing to have a discussion and see good ideas that come to the table. I really have not been too keen on a lot of ideas that I’ve heard so far. We did do pension reform in 2011. It was touted the best thing since sliced bread. It was talked about nationwide,” Prieto said.
The governor’s plan would replace the current pension system with a 401K-style plan and would ask public employee unions like the NJEA to accept lesser health coverage in return for managing their own pensions.
Assembly Minority Leader Jon Bramnick, who backs the plan, says the Legislature has been slow to react because there is not an immediate crisis.
“I support what the governor’s saying in terms of addressing the long-term issues regarding the pensions. The other issue is from my understand is that the teachers union is gonna have to discuss with their membership whether or not they’re going to take this healthcare proposal from a platinum plus to a gold standard, because that’s probably the key issue in terms of making any changes. So I think the governor and the Legislature is probably waiting on the teachers union to say whether they’re willing to reduce the health care plans,” Bramnick said.
“You could go back to labor and say ‘look we need to do more’, but you can’t go back to ’em until you’ve at least made the effort on the front end, the one you said you would do,” Sweeney said.
When asked how this plan can get through the Legislature, Kean said, “Because everybody starts to recognize it’s necessary.”
“We did the pension reforms. These employees are paying more. The problem is, the state of New Jersey has not met its obligations,” Prieto said.
Sweeney says he gets Christie’s politics on this.
“I think he’s pushing it for an audience beyond New Jersey,” said Sweeney.
Nobody has introduced a bill yet.