Christie Veto’s Gay Marriage Sets The State for A Confrontation to Override

New Jersey’s Republican Governor Chris Christie fulfilled his pledge to veto a bill that would have legalized same-sex marriage, setting up an override fight with a Legislature controlled by Democrats.

Christie, 49, announced the move in a statement issued late today from his Trenton office. Lawmakers sent the measure to him earlier in the day. Sponsors said they’ll work to assemble the two-thirds majority in each chamber needed to override the veto.

“For someone who has national aspirations in the Republican party right now, I think there’s not much choice but to take this position,” Ken Sherrill, who teaches politics at Hunter College in New York, said by telephone.

Christie has said he believes that marriage should be between a man and a woman and that the issue should be decided by a statewide referendum. Democrats have countered that marriage is a civil right and shouldn’t be subjected to a popular vote. Legislative leaders have made the issue a priority, two years after failing to pass a similar bill supported by then-Governor Jon Corzine, a Democrat.

“I am adhering to what I’ve said since this bill was first introduced -- an issue of this magnitude and importance, which requires a constitutional amendment, should be left to the people of New Jersey to decide,” Christie said in his statement.

Changes Sought

In killing the legislation, Christie invoked a “conditional veto,” which lets him return the measure to legislators asking for changes. He suggested creating an ombudsman to tighten enforcement of New Jersey’s civil-union law that pertains to same-sex couples and renewed his push for a statewide referendum.

“Whenever you put equal rights for minorities on the ballot, minorities lose -- everyone knows that and Christie’s not an idiot,” said Sherrill, a former New York elected official who is married to another man. “Let the people vote has been a chant from the opponents of marriage equality going back to the Massachusetts days.”

Sponsors of the rejected bill said they’ll work to assemble the votes required to override Christie. They have almost two years before the legislative session ends to accomplish that task. Supporters need 27 votes in the Senate, where Democrats have a 24-16 margin, and 54 in the Assembly, where the party holds a 48-32 edge. The measure passed 42-33 in the Assembly yesterday and 24-16 in the Senate on Feb. 13.

‘We Will Override’

“We will override this veto,” Senate President Stephen Sweeney, a West Deptford Democrat, said in a statement.

“This is about nothing but feeding into peoples’ prejudices against gays and lesbians,” said Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, a gay Democrat representing Trenton who sponsored the measure. “This is not going to destroy anybody’s marriage. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

Steven Goldstein, chairman of Garden State Equality, a gay- rights group that supported the measure, said he believes Christie’s opposition comes from national political ambitions and seeking to appease the socially conservative wing of his party. He called the veto a “brutally anti-gay act.”

“I don’t think Chris Christie has an anti-gay bone in his body,” Goldstein said. Christie vetoed the bill “because the 2016 South Carolina Republican Presidential primary electorate is anti-gay.”

Abide by Voters

Christie, speaking to reporters on Feb. 14, said he didn’t believe Democrats could muster the votes for an override. He has said he would abide by the results of a referendum, and that he believes such a question probably would pass in New Jersey, where polls show a majority of voters support same-sex marriage.

The New Jersey Family Policy Council, which has opposed the practice, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the veto.

Voters in states around the nation have rejected gay marriage in all 31 referendums held on the issue. Sweeney, the Senate leader, said on Feb. 13 that “there’s not a chance in hell” he’d bring a bill authorizing such a ballot measure to a vote in the upper chamber.

Washington Governor Christine Gregoire, a Democrat, signed a bill on Feb. 13 to make her state the seventh allowing same- sex couples to marry. New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont and the District of Columbia already permit the practice. Christie’s move was condemned by groups including Freedom to Marry.

Maryland’s House of Delegates, which blocked gay-marriage legislation last year, may vote today on a similar bill.

--With assistance from Stacie Servetah in Trenton. Editors: Ted Bunker, William Glasgall, Mark Schoifet

To contact the reporters on this story: Terrence Dopp in Trenton, New Jersey, at tdopp@bloomberg.net; Esme E. Deprez in New York at edeprez@bloomberg.net;

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Tannenbaum at mtannen@bloomberg.net

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