Chris Christie’s War on Press Seen as Bridgegate Retaliation

New Jersey’s Democratically controlled State Legislature, aided and abetted by lame duck New Jersey Governor and erstwhile Republican presidential nominee Chris Christie, has opened a can of worms with respect to the publication of official legal notices from the government to the people of the state. Coming in the wake of Donald Trump’s threats to “do something” about libel laws to squelch newspaper attacks on him, and threats to curtail access to the Internet  for the same reason, Christie’s endorsement of a plan to eliminate a source of revenue for New Jersey’s newspapers seems motivated by revenge rather than cost efficiency.

Under the current laws of all 50 states, state, county and municipal governments are required by law to post all public notices – including  sheriff’s sales, ordinances and requests for proposals, as well as public notices posted by private parties – in newspapers throughout the state.

The original intent of these laws was to prevent cronyism, the practice under which foreclosures, auctions of real property, and requests for proposals were distributed quietly, often without any public notification, which benefited only those few people “who were in the know” because they knew someone in the state, county, or municipal agencies that were involved. 

The restricted distribution of this information was a major contributor to public corruption because the covert notices about the availability of these money making opportunities could be used to reward donors to political campaigns and as a means of generating kickbacks to the politicians involved.

Under New Jersey’s landmark bill, state, county and municipal officials (and private parties required to publish public notices) would no longer be required to publish such notices in local newspapers, allowing them to post such notices on their own individual websites. Proponents of the plan say that it could save New Jersey up to $80 million a year.  Opponents of the bill believe that the new law could enable officials to reward publications that support their agendas by giving them paid notices while withholding paid notices to publications that did not support those agendas.  If approved, New Jersey would be the first state to repeal the legal ad requirement.

Christie’s office contends more than $80 million is paid annually by taxpayers and private businesses to publish legal notices. The governor’s office said it based its figure off of “an internal tally of a sampling for daily newspapers.”  The New Jersey Press Association says that legal ads are a $20 million revenue source for the struggling newspaper business in their state, which the governor would like to hurt. Without that revenue, 300 jobs could be eliminated based on an average salary benefits package and payroll taxes of $65,000 per employee, White said.

The campaign for and against the bill ramped up in earnest Friday night, when Christie launched a barrage of tweets against Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) and Sen. Robert Gordon (D-Bergen) after they expressed concern in a press release that “the legislation is reportedly being pushed by the governor to exact revenge on the press whose investigative reporting helped to uncover Bridgegate and the involvement of the governor’s staff.”

There is a widespread assumption in New Jersey that Christie, who has a reputation for being a vindictive politician, is publicly supporting the bill to retaliate against local weekly newspapers that broke the Bridgegate scandal that cost Republican Governor any shot at getting a major position (or any position at all) in the incoming Trump administration.

The legislation is being touted by proponents as a cost saving measure, noting that it doesn’t prevent government officials from posting legal notices but merely gives them the option of choosing whether to publish them in the newspaper.

While the bill doesn’t require New Jersey officials to refrain from publishing newspaper public notices, government notices only account for 20 percent of the total value of public notice advertising, the bulk of which comes from private party advertisements. The proposed legislation makes no provision for those advertisements.

“Hundreds of newspaper employees dedicated to keeping your officials honest will lose their jobs and dozens of towns will lose their community newspapers if the bill is passed,” according to the editorial in the Asbury Park Press, one of Gannett’s papers. “Don’t let them get away with it.” Most of the Gannett-owned daily newspapers took the unusual step Saturday of running front-page editorials urging lawmakers to vote down the bill

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