Gov. Chris Christie lost another court battle in his attempt to keep secret a key cog in his taxpayer-funded publicity machine.
Superior Court Judge Mary C. Jacobson denied the New Jersey governor’s plea for a stay pending a possible appeal of her order to release a copy of a strategic list of 2,500 media contacts to New Jersey Watchdog.
In an eight-page decision, Jacobson concluded it is “unlikely (the governor’s office) will succeed on the merits of the case.”
As a result, Christie has until Sept. 16 – coincidentally, the date of the Republican presidential debate on CNN – to convince a state appellate court to grant emergent relief on the premise that release of the record would cause “irreparable harm” to the state.
The list was created by the governor’s communications staff, which consists of 16 full-time state employees paid $1.36 million in salaries last year, New Jersey Watchdog found. It helped the governor score countless national television appearances, not to mention 8,761,511 views on YouTube, 176,955 likes on Facebook and 6,810 tweets to 489,000 followers on Twitter during his first five years in office.
It was an integral part of a media campaign to turn Christie into a national figure and set the stage for his White House run. The governor’s office has refused comment on whether it shared the list with Christie’s presidential campaign.
Probably more revealing than the list is how far a governor, who once championed transparency in government, has gone to avoid disclosure of a public record that his press secretary, Kevin Roberts, calls a “valuable asset.”
The complete story is online at http://watchdog.org/237176/christie-overruled/.
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