Atlantic City Closing on Wed.

[mdelcorso]

This is the first government shutdown in the history of NJ state government. Corzine has ordered the legislature back to session Tuesday at 8am. The NJ consitution gives the governor the power to order the legislation in to session when it is required to secure the public good. The question remains if they will actually report to Trenton or not...

At this point, it looks very likely that the casinos will close on Wednesday. Corzine had a press conference a few hours ago that I watched and it basically seemed impossible that a budget will be presented for signature before then. At this point, no budget has even gotten out of committee.

FYI, NJ cannot be sued over this issue. They are immune in this case because they are in full compliance with the NJ state constitution which is the body of law in play here. The constitution prohibits the state from drawing funds from the state treasury if there is not a balanced budget in place...

The republicans in the legislature really have very little power in NJ at the moment. They are the minority in both houses and do not control the budget committee, thus cannot force a budget to the floor for vote in either house. This is basically a fight between the democrat governor who wants to raise taxes to close a budget gap (God forbid they cut spending instead) against democrats in the legislature that do not want to be labeled as tax raisers because it will hurt their chances at reelection in 2007.