Friday, June 24, 2011

NEW JERSEY - UNIONS HANDED ANOTHER LOSS! KUDOS TO GOV CHRISTIE

Huge Victory For Christie: NJ Legislature Passes His Plan To Cut Union Benefits For State Workers, Will Now Pay Their (Gasp) Fair Share…

Never in a million years would most of us have dreamed this could happen in the union stronghold of New Jersey. Christie deserves a ton of credit for this historic victory.

TRENTON — New Jersey lawmakers tonight voted to enact a sweeping plan to cut public worker benefits after a long day of high-pitched political drama in the streets of Trenton and behind closed doors.


Union members chanted outside the Statehouse and in the Assembly balcony, and dissident Democrats tried to stall with amendments and technicalities. Although they successfully convinced top lawmakers to remove a controversial provision restricting public workers’ access to out-of-state medical care, they failed to halt a historic defeat for New Jersey’s powerful unions and a political victory for Republican Gov. Chris Christie.

“Together, we’re showing New Jersey is serious about providing long-term fiscal stability for our children and grandchildren,” Christie said in a statement released after the vote. “We are putting the people first and daring to touch the third rail of politics in order to bring reform to an unsustainable system.”

Christie and Republicans banded together with Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) and Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex) to advance the bill despite opposition from the majority of Democrats who control the Legislature.

More than 8,500 protesters, the most this year, poured into Trenton this morning with signs, speeches and their trademark inflatable rat. But most had dispersed by the time Democrats emerged from their hours-long caucus meetings where they debated the bill’s details and a separate budget proposal. The Assembly convened for a vote at about 6:15 p.m., more than five hours late, and lawmakers delivered speech after speech on the bill for nearly three hours.

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