New Jersey Legislature passes Marriage Equality - Christie'sBalance Act Intensifies

As the New York Times is reporting, the New Jersey Assembly passed a marriage equality bill today thereby throwing a hot potato in the lap of the New Jersey's porcine governor, Chris Christie. Asa Salon piece sets out, Christie is now caught between appeasing the anti-gay Christofascist base of the Republican Party and not alienating the wider New Jersey electorate, the majority of which supports same sex marriage. First these details fr0m the Times article:

The New Jersey Assembly on Thursday passed a bill legalizing same-sex marriages, setting the stage for an expected veto by Gov. Chris Christie.

The 42-33 vote sends the bill to Christie, who won't take immediate action. The Republican governor who opposes gay marriage had promised "very swift action" if the bill passed both houses of the Legislature, but the Assembly isn't required to send the bill to his desk until the close of business Friday. The Senate approved the bill Monday.

"Without question this is a historic day in the state of New Jersey," Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver said after the vote. She said she had never been more proud of the Democratic caucus for doing "what citizens sent us here to do: to deliberate, to use the legislative process to represent the interests of all New Jerseyans."

The bill would need several Republican votes in each house to override the governor; Christie himself essentially guaranteed that that won't happen.

With that in mind, Democrats who identified same-sex marriage as their No. 1 priority for the two-year legislative session that began in January have adopted a longer view. They say there's no rush for an override vote, especially because the Legislature has been unsuccessful in every prior attempt to override Christie, most notably to reinstate a surcharge on millionaires.

Instead, they plan to bide their time in hopes that support for gay marriage — currently 52-42 percent in New Jersey, according to one recent voter poll — will continue to grow.

The risk for Christie if he vetoes the bill is that he himself is up for re-election in 2013 and in a close race, the veto could come back to bite him in his very ample ass. But if he doesn't veto the bill, the Christofascists may desert him and otherwise make his life Hell. Personally, I have little sympathy for Christie's dilemma. Yes, doing the right thing will not sit well with the hate merchants in the GOP base. But often doing the right thing doesn't win one short term popularity. Especially with bigots. Here are highlights from Salon on Christie's catch 22 situation:

There are two elections on the horizon that Chris Christie has a particular interest in. The first is in New Jersey next year, when he’ll seek a second term as governor. The second is in 2016, when he’ll make a logical presidential candidate — if he wins reelection in ’13 and if the Republican nomination is open.

On the one hand, support for gay marriage among New Jersey voters is solid — 52 percent favored it and 42 percent opposed it in one recent poll, while another pegged the margin at 48-37. Among independents, support is even higher. And the trajectory seems clear: Just five years ago, those overall numbers were reversed when the topic was polled. Given how rare Republican victories in New Jersey are (Christie’s 2009 win marked just the fifth statewide triumph for the GOP in 37 years, and only the second that was won by more than a point), Christie has to be very careful as he approaches his reelection race. He doesn’t have much margin for error when it comes to alienating swing voters . . . . and swing voters in New Jersey are generally fine with gay marriage.

But Republican voters nationally are not, and it will be a long time before they are (if they ever are). So if he wants to preserve his viability for ’16, Christie cannot be known as the New Jersey governor who enacted same-sex marriage. But he also can’t position himself as a hard-line, stop-at-nothing-to-derail-it opponent of it; to do so would reek of the cultural conservatism that has made most national Republicans unmarketable in New Jersey and endanger Christie’s reelection prospects. And if he gets the boot in ’13, it could sink whatever ’16 ambitions he has.

Christie’s workaround has been to oppose gay marriage while calling for a public referendum. . . . .Democrats in the Legislature have the votes to make sure one never takes place.

But yesterday’s state Senate vote offered another potential way out for Christie: a legislative override. . . . . This presents a Machiavellian possibility for Christie: Wink at them, continue voicing his opposition, then throw up his hands as the Legislature overrides him and takes the issue off the table.

[D]on’t expect an override any time soon. But if popular support keeps growing and Christie finds himself staring at a difficult reelection race in ’13, it might start to make sense.

The cynic in me hopes that Christie vetoes the bill, the legislature overrides the veto and Christie is voted out in 2013. It would be the best of all worlds and Christie would receive a well deserved punishment for caving into the forces of hate and bigotry in the GOP.