Gov. Chris Christie said Monday he won't renominate a fellow Republican to the state Supreme Court rather than allow her to be attacked by Democrats who he said vowed not to confirm her for tenure.
"I was not going to let her loose to the animals,'' Christie said of Justice Helen Hoens, whose term expires in September.
If renominated and confirmed, the 59-year-old jurist could have remained on the high court until the mandatory retirement age of 70. But Democrats refused to go along, Christie said, because they aren't finished exacting retribution over his failure to reappoint Justice John Wallace for tenure in 2010.
Wallace was a moderate and the high court's only African-American member who was two years from retirement. Christie's first attempt to follow through on a campaign promise to reshape the court was met with fury that has stalled court appointments since.
Sen. Ray Lesniak, the senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said he would not have supported Hoens' renomination, partly to play "hardball'' after Wallace, but mostly because she has not shown independence from Christie in judicial decisions.
A recent news report noted a $1,200 contribution to Christie's campaign from Hoens' brother. Her husband, Bob Schwaneberg, works on health care policy for the governor's office.
"This is the first time the governor has backed down from a fight and went wobbly on his own Supreme Court nominee,'' Lesniak said. "I don't think it was just little Sen. Lesniak who caused him not to renominate Justice Hoens.''
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Hoens said she was saddened she can't continue on the court but thankful for having had the opportunity to serve New Jersey.
Christie said Hoens thanked him privately for sparing her the treatment of two prior Supreme court nominees, Phil Kwon and Bruce Harris, both of whom were voted down by the Senate Judiciary Committee after a difficult public hearing that scrutinized Kwon's parents' finances and Harris's qualifications.
"Justice Hoens deserved to leave this position with her professional reputation intact,'' Christie said. "I'm taking responsibility for not allowing this group of people to do this to (her).''
New Jersey State Bar Association President Ralph Lamparello said Christie's decision "smacks of political one-upmanship _ and will continue the slippery slope we began traveling when the governor made the then-unprecedented move of not renominating Justice Wallace for tenure.''
"The result of today's action will be further erosion of the independence of our courts, whose role as the third branch of government is to balance the other two branches and to protect the rights of the citizens,'' he said.
Christie introduced his latest nominee, Judge Faustino Fernandez-Vina, on Monday. The 61-year-old Barrington resident has been a Superior Court judge since 2004. A Cuban American, he would be the only Hispanic on the court, but not the first. Justice Roberto Rivera-Soto, who grew up in Puerto Rico, left the court two years ago.
Fernandez-Vina was unanimously re-confirmed in 2011. A year later, Chief Justice Stuart Rabner, a Democrat, made him assignment judge of the Camden vicinage.
Two other Christie nominees are awaiting hearings. David Bauman, 56, of Holmdel, a Superior Court judge who was born in Japan, and Robert Hanna, 54, of Madison, the president of the Board of Public Utilities that oversees the state's regulated utilities, were nominated to the high court in December.
Christie, who disagreed with Supreme Court rulings on school funding and affordable housing, said the court is being damaged by having senior Superior Court judges temporarily fill vacancies on the high court.
But Lesniak said he's more comfortable with experienced appellate judges sitting on the court than he would be with Christie's prior nominees.
