From today’s NJ Spotlight, regarding Gov. Christie’s long-standing plans to remake the State Supreme Court in order to overturn NJ’s long-time school funding traditions (and, perhaps, other gubernatorial fixations like a retreat from the Mt. Laurel rulings re: affordable housing):
And a central tenet of Christie’s education platform has been to dismantle the Abbott v. Burke rulings and the school-funding formula, another feat he has yet to pull off in the face of Democratic opposition. But this week, he reportedly withdrew one of his latest nominees for the state Supreme Court, Robert Hanna, raising prospects that he is seeking a compromise to win approval of others initiatives.
(On the other hand, you can compare this to another Christie quote cited in the Asbury Park Press yesterday:
Gov. Chris Christie has turned up the heat in what’s depicted by the legal community as a threat to judicial independence, saying at a press conference in Trenton before Christmas that state Supreme Court judges “are not accountable to anyone.”
He also blamed them for “enormous mistakes in the educational system in this state and in the housing system in this state.”)
