Christie vetoes bill requiring recess for young students

Other bills rejected included a measure that would have boosted the legal smoking age in the Garden State to 21 and one requiring law enforcement agencies in New Jersey to establish minority recruitment and selection programs.

Christie wanted Cuomo to tell Patrick Foye, who was the Port Authority executive director, to “f–k off”, Politico reported Tuesday.

“We are disappointed that Governor Christie vetoed this measure that would have protected thousands of New Jersey’s kids from a lifetime of tobacco addiction, thereby saving lives and health-care costs”, said Ethan Hasbrouck, a lobbyist for an advocacy group affiliated with the American Cancer Society.

While Lampitt suggested Christie put his own Presidential aspirations above the interests of the people of New Jersey, Burzichelli was a bit more hesitant, or “pragmatic” as he put it, insisting the Governor and his staff had enough time to deal with numerous measures that were pocket vetoed.

A Christie spokesman couldn’t be reached for comment Tuesday.

The vetoed bill, S3249, aimed to scrap most of the state’s current smart gun law which has remained dormant for over a decade and replace it with a requirement that the state Attorney General continue to report to the governor and legislature each year on the commercial availability of the devices in the country. Christie pocket vetoed 62 bills.

“It is the height of hypocrisy to buoy one’s campaign recounting his mother’s fatal addiction to nicotine, and with millions of Facebook video views about his friend’s losing battle with addiction, then veto a bipartisan bill that is New Jersey’s best chance to keep thousands of adolescents away from addiction and death”, Crane said. But spokeswoman Joelle Farrell said: “Having the Legislature pass more than 100 bills in such a hasty and scrambled way, praying for them to be rubber stamped, is never a good formula for effectively doing public business”.

Hasbrouck added, “Evidence suggests that if a young person does not begin smoking by the age of 26, it is very unlikely that he or she will ever take up smoking”.

Lawmakers passed the bill in response to a decision last summer by a state Tax Court judge who ruled Morristown Medical Center had evolved over the years to include for-profit operations and should have paid Morristown property taxes.