Subject: Christie vetoes N.J. equal pay bill
From: "Roberts, Kelly" <[email-masked]>
To: Comm_D <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 May 2016 15:59:09 -0700

We could tweet something on this tying Christie to Trump

Christie vetoes N.J. equal pay bill<http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/05/christie_announces_partial_veto_of_equal_pay_bill.html>
NJ Advance Media - Samantha Marcus

Gov. Chris Christie on Monday vetoed a bill barring gender-based pay discrimination, saying it would go beyond federal standards and make New Jersey "very business unfriendly."

While emphasizing his support for equal pay protections, the Republican governor criticized where the legislation "departs significantly from well-established law."

In his message for a conditional veto, Christie said there is "no reason for our law to go beyond the Lilly Ledbetter Act," the federal equal pay legislation.

"The sponsors certainly should not object to matching the federal law they so often cite as a model," the governor said.

Christie has vetoed bills with similar language in the past - most recently in 2014, citing concerns that its requirements and penalties were too broad. The bill was also opposed by business interest groups in the state on similar grounds.

Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen), a sponsor, said Monday that Christie "essentially gutted the bill."

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The legislation (S992) would have prohibited an employer from paying one sex less than the other for "substantially similar" work. Employers would be allowed to pay an unequal rate only if they can demonstrate it's based on factors other than sex, such as training, education, experience, or production quality.

In his conditional veto message, Christie said the bill oversimplifies wage comparisons between employees by dismissing differences in employees' respective work and working conditions.

"This is nonsensical and makes New Jersey very business unfriendly," Christie said. "While I support an explicit prohibition on wage discrimination on the basis of gender, I recognize that that identification of unlawful wage discrimination requires an intensive fact-based evaluation of the workplace and positions. This bill eliminates that requirement. That is wrong."

Weinberg said Christie's change would prohibit pay comparisons across all of an employers' operations and facilities. He also wants to parallel the two-year federal limit on back pay an employee can receive in a wage discrimination action and ask prospective employees to consent to even tighter limits.

The bill would have allowed the employee to recover unlimited back pay.

Christie raised the same objection to unlimited back pay in vetoing an equal pay bill in 2012. Assemblywoman Pamela R. Lampitt (D-Somerset) has said she didn't want to limit a wage discrimination claim to the date of the complaint, because that ignored the harm of lost wages in the months or years preceding legal action.

Another provision Christie wants to axe would allow someone who prevails in a wage discrimination claim to collect tripled damages and would "make New Jersey a liberal outlier" and "set New Jersey backwards," the governor said.

Also consistent with a previous veto, Christie carved out a section requiring that businesses contracting with the state file with the state the gender, race, job title and compensation of every employee associated with that contract.

"This is outrageous bureaucratic red tape creation," Christie said. "As I expressed when I vetoed nearly identical legislation last session, this provision would not meaningfully improve New Jersey's anti-discrimination law."

Weinberg has said that requirement was necessary because "the first step toward determining inequity is transparency."

She said Monday she was unsure whether the sponsors would attempt an override - the bill passed 28-4 in the Senate and 54-14-6 in the Assembly - but that she would like to reach out to the governor's office to see if there is any agreement on a tough pay equity bill to be made.

Samantha Marcus may be reached at [email-masked]