Christie Vetoes NJ Trans Birth Certificate Bill

For you trans, bi and SGL folks in our community who voted for Sergeant Schultz New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) in the last election cycle thinking he was a 'moderate', well, here's something to burst your bubble concerning that misguided line of thinking in addition to the ongoing BridgeGate scandal.

The New Jersey Senate passed on a 21-11 vote back in December A-4097/S-2786, a bill that revises the procedure to issue amended birth certificates for persons born in New Jersey who have undergone a gender transition.  The bill would allow them do so without surgical intervention. 

The bill had previously passed the New Jersey General Assembly on a 43-37 vote back in June.

Christie today gave A-4097 an ABSOLUTE veto, which means it needs a 2/3 majority in both houses to override the veto.  Translation: that's 27 Senate votes and 54 General Assembly votes. 

That means the Democrats, who have the majority in both houses, would not only have to get everyone in their caucus to vote to override, need to have 3 Republicans cross the aisle in the NJ Senate to do so and on the General Assembly side get 7 Republicans to cross party lines to do so.

Seeing that the bill passed the 40 member New Jersey Senate with 21 votes and the 80 member General Assembly with 43 votes, they would need to flip 6 NO votes in the senate and 13 NO votes in the general assembly to reach that override threshold. 

Not likely that's going to happen on the GOP side, especially with a governor with a reputation for punishing his enemies, even if he is politically wounded right now. 

So if you needed another reason to not like Chris Christie, here it is.
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