Christie to NJ Dems: Include me in Minimum Wage Hike Talks

The Assembly Labor Committee considers a bill today that would raise the minimum wage in New Jersey from $7.25 to $8.50 an hour.

Governor Christie says " I am not yet focused on the minimum wage situation and what we may or may not do- but what I can guarantee you is that nothing will be done unless I'm a player at the table to discuss it…and so far the democrats have just decided to operate on their own - we've seen this before, when they operate on their own, things get vetoed…so they should come and sit and talk to me about it - no one has yet."

He says, "There's some things about the issue that give me concern- about its potential for having people lose jobs or reduce hours, there's other things about it that make me think maybe it's time to raise it…my mind is not set on the issue - I'm willing to be persuaded about it, but I'm not willing to be persuaded in silence."

Christie adds, "If they've got an argument to make to me, in the context of everything else we're trying to do in this state I'm willing to listen…they have a bill moving and no one has taken the time to come and sit down with me about why the bill is the way it is or why they think it's important or anything like that…you know that's okay - I get it - they can do it - but nothing is going to happen until we sit down at the table and talk about it in the context of everything else that we want to get accomplished in the next 4 months."

He says if the measure is passed by the full Legislature he'll take a look at it, "but I would be less likely to sign something like that because it wouldn't have any input from me and I only give input when I think it's valuable… getting my input might also help the democrats get some republican votes too - if they were interested in that."