TRENTON – Gov. Chris Christie today directed much of his ire toward the House Republican leadership in Washington, D.C., for not voting on a Sandy aid package.
But he had a little venom left over for state Democrats.
Christie railed against House Speaker John Boehner for not holding a vote on the $60.4 billion aid package to help New Jersey, New York and Connecticut rebuild from the super storm.
Put the aid package to a vote and let it stand or fall on its merits, Christie said: “majority rules.’’
However, he equated the decision to not hold a vote in Congress to inaction in the Democrat-controlled state Legislature.
“Have some guts. Put it up, vote yes or no and let’s move on. You’ve heard me say this a million times.”
“This is like the people we have down the hall with the Senate Democrats who don’t want to have up or down votes on Supreme Court justices, on prosecutors and all these other people because what they know is, they don’t have any substantive reason to oppose those people in the very same way that most of these folks didn’t have a substantive reason to oppose this.”
The Senate Judiciary has not scheduled a hearing on Christie’s two latest Supreme Court nominees, and late last year, tired of waiting for the Senate Democrats to move on a nomination of a Morris County prosecutor, Christie had his nominee named an acting prosecutor.
The Senate Democrats then held a vote on the Senate floor on the nomination and voted it down, saying they could not allow Christie to circumvent the Constitution. Senate Republicans said it was the Democrats who were causing the problem by not abiding by the advise and consent procedures regarding gubernatorial nominations.