Christie picks Democrat for N.J. Supreme Court

Gov. Christie plans to nominate former federal prosecutor Walter Timpone to the New Jersey Supreme Court, a move that could end a years-long stalemate by filling the court's last vacant seat with a Democrat.

Joined by Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D., Gloucester) at a Statehouse news conference Monday, the Republican governor said he and Sweeney, who have long battled over the court's composition, had reached a "bipartisan agreement."

"There's no secret that I would have preferred to nominate a Republican, and I did, a number of times," Christie said. But he said he had to consider "what's going to work."

"We are getting our jobs done," Christie said.

Timpone, who attended the news conference, was "someone I have the highest level of trust" in, he said.

In February, Christie nominated a Republican, Monmouth County Superior Court Judge David Bauman, then hammered Sweeney for weeks over his refusal to give Bauman a confirmation hearing.

"I'm sorry that had to happen that way," Sweeney said Monday, calling Bauman "absolutely qualified."

Sweeney had refused to allow a Republican in the seventh seat, which has been vacant for nearly six years and filled by Appellate Division judges called up by the chief justice.

Currently, that judge is a Democrat - giving the court three Republicans, three Democrats, and one independent.

If confirmed by the Senate, Timpone, formerly in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Newark, now a partner at the law firm of McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter, would maintain the current partisan balance on the court.

Timpone's law practice focuses on white-collar crime, corporate internal investigations, health-care compliance, and defense, labor law, and complex civil litigation.

He is also vice chairman of the state's three-member Election Law Enforcement Commission, to which Christie appointed him in 2010. His confirmation to the Supreme Court would leave the commission with a vacancy.

When Christie became U.S. attorney for New Jersey in 2002, Timpone was his top choice for first assistant.

In fact, New Jersey's two Democratic U.S. senators, Jon S. Corzine and Robert Torricelli, had signed off on President George W. Bush's nomination of Christie with the understanding that Timpone would be his second-in-command. The senators, like others, were concerned that Christie, a former securities lawyer, had no law enforcement background.

But Timpone ultimately withdrew his name from consideration for the post after the Justice Department stalled the vetting process.

Prosecutors in New York were said to be angry with Timpone because he had visited Torricelli's home while they were investigating the senator's fund-raising activities. At the time, Timpone, then a criminal-defense attorney, was representing a Hudson County politician whom prosecutors were trying to enlist as an informant against Torricelli. The senator was never charged with a crime. Prosecutors thought Timpone was evasive about the visit.

Christie traveled to Washington to try to persuade Justice Department officials that Timpone was suited for the job.

"I fought hard back in 2002," Christie said Monday, "and I think the Justice Department was wrong at that time."

He added, "I know all the facts and circumstances in that matter, and none of it concerns me."

Christie instead tapped Ralph Marra, a good friend of Timpone's, for the job.

Timpone represented the now-defunct University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey when the school negotiated a deferred-prosecution agreement with Christie, then U.S. attorney. Instead of facing criminal charges for Medicare and Medicaid fraud, the university agreed to allow a federal monitor to take control of its finances.

Asked by a reporter if he was concerned that Timpone was too close to Christie, Sweeney noted that Timpone was also close to Torricelli and Corzine. "He's respected by a lot of Democrats throughout the state," Sweeney said. "He's a real Democrat. I've looked through his contributions - 99.5 percent of them to Democrats."

Sweeney added, "I don't think he's a rubber stamp by any means."

Christie and Sweeney have sparred over the court - which Christie has termed overly activist - since the governor took the unprecedented step of refusing to renominate a sitting justice for tenure in 2010.

Senate Democrats then blocked some of Christie's nominees, and Christie declined to renominate a second sitting justice. Over the years, three of Christie's Republican nominees were confirmed.

The governor, meanwhile, agreed in 2014 to renominate Chief Justice Stuart Rabner - a Democrat - for tenure. And Sweeney agreed to Republican Lee Solomon's appointment to the court. But the last seat remained unfilled.

The state bar association said it hoped the apparent agreement Monday would end a backlog over other judicial nominations.

"We applaud our elected leaders for putting aside politics to preserve the independence of our judiciary," Miles S. Winder, president of the New Jersey State Bar Association, said in a statement. He said the compromise had averted "a true judicial emergency," with 44 Superior Court judicial vacancies "and the threat that an additional 23 judges up for tenure would have been held up" due to the Supreme Court impasse.

Asked if the deal on the Supreme Court would help ease a backlog of judicial vacancies in the state, Christie took issue with the premise.

"We've done pretty well in nominating judges over the course of time. There have been some backlogs in certain counties," he said. "But I think most of the time what you can attribute that to is disagreement between the governor's office and certain home county senators on who the appropriate people are."

Christie added, "I think you'll see us do well between now and June 30."

While "it will be a very big step" if Timpone is found to be qualified and confirmed by the Senate, the politicization of the court could continue beyond Christie's tenure, said Robert Williams, a state constitutional law professor at Rutgers Law School.

"There's a lot more to play out to see whether . . . permanent damage has been done to the judiciary, or whether we'll look back on this as a six- or seven-year - not just a bump in the road, but a big bump in the road," Williams said.

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