Christie Names a Gay Man and an Asian for the Top Court
By KATE ZERNIKE
Published: January 23, 2012
Gov. Chris Christie made a broad stroke for diversity on New Jersey’s Supreme Court on Monday, nominating one man who would be the first openly gay justice, and another who would be the first Asian and first immigrant to serve.
New Jersey Governor’s Office
For two nominations to the New Jersey Supreme Court, Gov. Chris Christie on Monday selected Bruce A. Harris, right, who works for a prominent law firm and would be the state's first openly gay justice, and Phillip H. Kwon, left, the first assistant state attorney general, who would be the first Asian justice. With them is Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno.
One nominee, Phillip H. Kwon, a Korean immigrant who lives in Bergen County, worked under Mr. Christie when Mr. Christie was the United States attorney for New Jersey, and now works in his administration asfirst assistant attorney general. The other nominee, Bruce A. Harris, was elected mayor of Chatham in November and is a lawyer with Greenberg Traurig, a prominent national firm. Besides being the first openly gay justice on the state’s highest court, Mr. Harris would be its only black one, and just the third in its history.
“This signals just how far we all have come,” Mr. Christie said in announcing the nominations at the State House in Trenton.
But standing next to Mr. Harris, 61, and his partner of three decades, Mr. Christie said the nomination did not indicate a reversal of his opposition to same-sex marriage. The Democrats, who control the Legislature, have made passage of a bill legalizing it their top priority — hearings begin Tuesday — but the governor on Monday dismissed the proposal as just “a bill like hundreds of bills that are pending in the State Legislature.”
“I’m not someone who changes positions with the grace of a ballerina,” Mr. Christie said. “I wouldn’t be all atwitter in expectation.”
Still, it was a striking move for a Republican governor widely talked about as a future presidential contender, at a time when his party nationally is still strongly influenced by social conservatives.
“You could have picked me up off the floor,” said Steven Goldstein, the chairman of Garden State Equality, a gay rights group, describing his reaction when the governor called to tell him before making the nominations.
Nevertheless, Mr. Goldstein, too, cautioned against thinking the governor would support same-sex marriage. “He has said in past years and months that he would veto the bill, and we take him at his word,” he said.
Neither nominee has judicial experience.
Mr. Christie has made no secret of his disagreements with the court and his intention to reshape it. In particular, he has complained about its upholding of a three-decade-old decision, known as the Abbott ruling, that required the state to spend more money on its poorest school districts in an attempt to put them on more equal footing with wealthier districts. In May the court ordered the Christie administration to increase state funding to 31 of the poorest districts by $500 million.
In his State of the State address last week, Mr. Christie declared, “It is time to admit that the Supreme Court’s grand experiment with New Jersey children is a failure.”
The court is also very likely to be confronted again with the question of same-sex marriage. In 2006, it ruled that same-sex couples had the same rights as heterosexual married couples, but left it up to the Legislature to decide how to ensure those rights. The Legislature responded with a law allowing civil unions, but gay couples sued, arguing that the civil unions law does not provide equal rights, particularly in health care decisions. A Superior Court judge rejected the Christie administration’s attempt last year to have the case thrown out.
The nominations are subject to approval by the State Senate. Democratic leaders hailed the nominations as historic, praising the governor for his commitment to diversity, and said they anticipated that the Judiciary Committee would move quickly to consider them. But they noted that they had yet to examine the professional qualifications of the nominees.
In ending an impasse over another court nominee, the Senate president, Stephen M. Sweeney, said last year that he hoped the governor would build “a racially diverse court that looks like the state of New Jersey,” but vowed to move forward on whatever nominations the governor made for the two positions coming open on the court in March.
The impasse, which lasted a year, was over Mr. Christie’s refusal to reappoint Justice John E. Wallace Jr., the court’s only African-American, for the two years until he turned the mandatory retirement age of 70. It was the first time a governor had refused to reappoint a sitting justice.
The nominees put forward Monday would replace Justice Wallace and Justice Virginia Long, who faces mandatory retirement in March.
Mr. Harris would be the third African-American to serve on the court since it was created by the State Constitution in 1947. The justice approved last year in a compromise with Senate Democrats, Anne M. Patterson, gave the court a rare majority of women — the governor’s office said it was one of only five at that level of court nationwide.
The state has an unspoken tradition that no more than four members of the seven-justice court should be of the same party as the governor. Mr. Harris is a Republican, and Mr. Kwon is an independent; if they are approved, the court will have three Republicans, two Democrats and two independents.
At Greenberg Traurig, Mr. Harris specializes in commercial lending and public finance. He graduated from Amherst College and received degrees from the Boston University Management School and Yale Law School. Mr. Kwon, 44, graduated from Georgetown University and Rutgers Law School, where he was editor of the law review.
The Supreme Court deliberates and votes on every application to hear a case, and it requires the votes of only three justices to agree to do so.
“The simple fact of having two new members joining the court is very significant, putting aside how they might vote,” said Peter Verniero, a former Supreme Court justice and attorney general under Gov. Christie Whitman who is now in private practice.
Justices serve seven-year terms, at which point they are eligible to be nominated by the governor again. If the Senate confirms them the second time, they may serve until age 70.
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