Hardball politics — Jersey style. Recently revealed strong-armed tactics to extract political favors or exact political revenge are rocking political circles in the state and have led to accusations of bribery and extortion from the Senate president. Joining NJTV News Anchor Mary Alice Williams is Chief Political Correspondent Michael Aron.
Williams: What is going on?
Aron: Mary Alice, there are two big money issues in Trenton that have collided: the Transportation Trust Fund problem and the desire of public worker unions to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot this November guaranteeing full pension payments quarterly going forward. Steve Sweeney, the Senate president, has said over the past week that he won’t post the constitutional amendment — whose deadline is this Monday — until he sees what kind of deal is resolved on the Transportation Trust Fund because both affect the budget for years going forward. The NJEA is now infuriated at Sweeney, who’s been pushing this constitutional amendment for a year and threatening to withhold campaign contributions to Democrats over this issue. They want that ballot measure posted in a presidential election year. Sweeney today held a State House news conference saying this is tantamount to bribery. He called on the state attorney general and the U.S. attorney to investigate. Some might say this is just politics as usual — threat, counter threat. Sweeney took it to a new level. Let’s hear him:
Sweeney: I’m blown away that they would make these kinds of threats like it was nothing. Like it was nothing. I’m a union official. It makes unions look bad. You can withhold contributions for somebody because you’re unhappy with the Legislature, but to specifically tie it to an action in my mind is illegal. And I’m not tolerating it. And you know this is not the first time they’ve tried to bully me and I’m not going to be bullied, I’m not going to be pushed around and you know something, look, whatever it means for my future, it means for my future. I’m the Senate president and I’m not going to allow them to do this to my members.
Williams: What’s Sweeney’s end goal here?
Aron: Well, some people we spoke to today say that everything is about the governor’s race in 2017 and he’s a leading candidate. So, it probably has something to do with his desire to become the next governor, but it’s hard to figure out how. He’s trying to present himself as a guy who will do the right thing no matter what. The kind of white knight presentation, but there are others who are suggesting that by putting the Transportation Trust Fund above the pension amendment he’s making a play for support from the construction trade unions over the public sector worker unions. He comes out of the construction trades unions. He’s a union iron worker, no longer a worker but an official, but you said hardball politics at the top of this. Somebody I just spoke to on the phone said this is good country hardball politics.
Williams: And this wasn’t the only investigation that was called for this week. We somehow got this state wrapped up in the WikiLeaks scandal, right?
Aron: It’s interesting that the two top officials in state government — the Senate president and the governor — have called on the attorney general and the U.S. attorney to investigate opponents this week. Christie yesterday called on the state attorney general because in the WikiLeaks release of all 20,000 hacked documents from the Democratic National Committee were two emails from someone in the Democratic National Committee to Sen. Loretta Weinberg suggesting certain talking points, anti-Christie talking points. Now there are charges of plagiarism. Let’s take a look at what the DNC put out.
They sent to Loretta Weinberg this statement: “Despite suspending his failed presidential campaign, it appears that our governor will continue to travel around the country at the expense of New Jersey taxpayers focused on anything and everything but the job he was actually elected to do. I am calling on Gov. Christie to disclose how much his travel will cost our state. Not only is he currently drawing a taxpayer salary for a job he does not do, he has the audacity to make us to foot the bill for his self-serving political agenda.”
Weinberg shortly thereafter, under her own name, put out a similar statement: “Despite suspending his own failed presidential campaign, it appears that Gov. Christie will now be an important part of misogynist Donald Trump’s national presidential campaign. The governor seems more focused on anything and everything but the job he was actually elected to do … I am calling on the governor to refrain from using any taxpayer dollars as he travels in support of the Republican candidate for president. Gov. Christie is still demanding a taxpayer salary for a job it seems he does not want to do.”
Aron: That is not exact word for word, but it’s close enough that Chris Christie said, hey Melania Trump plagiarized Michelle Obama. This is pretty close. Now Christie also is outraged over this whole episode seeing coordination between the DNC and his political opponents in Trenton. He said this confirmed his suspicion that there may have been coordination between Weinberg and Assemblyman John Wisniewski in the DNC during the Bridgegate legislative hearings two years ago. Let’s hear him:
Christie: “Now we have proof that going back all the way to 2016 after I lost the presidential race and I was named chairman of the Trump transition they’re still directing Sen. Weinberg on how to attack me. You think if they’re doing it when I’m head of the Trump transition, a transition that may or may not ever happen, that they weren’t doing it when I was a leading candidate for president of the United States and had just come off of 60 percent re-election in a blue state? Come on.”
Aron: Christie wants to see Loretta Weinberg’s emails with the DNC. Her reply? She wants to see his emails between himself and the Republican Governors Association.