It was only a week ago Gov. Chris Christie sat in New Jersey 101.5's studio, fresh off his latest defeat — after the legislature declined to change an ethics law to let him profit off a book deal while still in office.

But even though he'd lost that battle, he wasn't done fighting it.

"People are acting as if this is a long-standing tradition," Christie said — telling host Eric Scott the ethics law preventing him from profiting from outside ventures was only a few years old, and the work of then-Gov. Jon Corzine.

But the same ethics law, didn't prevent a governor from making money on passive investments — like those that were contributing to Corzine's own considerable fortune, Christie said.

"I wonder why Gov. Corzine passed that law, when he was a former Goldman Sachs executive?" Christie asked.

One problem, according to Politico — Corzine didn't have anything to do with the ethics law.

"In fact, former Gov. Jim McGreevey in January 2004 signed the law (S1756) Christie was referring to — two years before Corzine became governor," Politico's Matt Friedman writes this week. "And the portion relating to the governor’s income had come from an executive order McGreevey signed two years earlier."

The Politico piece goes on to note that the bill, signed in 2004, was backed by a bipartisan group of senators and passed the Assembly without unopposed. The bill affected more than just the governor's income, and came after "a series of news articles about controversial junkets by McGreevey and lawmakers from both parties."

As the Politico story notes, Christie himself rose to prominence fighting New Jersey corruption as a U.S. attorney.

As reported by New Jersey 101.5's Michael Symons earlier this month, lawmakers weren’t able to muster the votes to pass a change to the ethics legislation — paired with a measure to let them give raises to their legislative staffs and to other public employees, such as judges. The legislature also declined to take up a measure to end required paid public notices in newspapers — a move editorial boards in New Jersey termed a "revenge bill," alleging it was retribution for reporting on scandals such as Bridgegate — though that proposal may return next year.

Several lawmakers acknowledged protests from New Jersey 101.5 listeners played a part in their decision, after morning host Bill Spadea sounded a rallying cry in opposition to the book deal. Spadea encouraged listeners to take to Twitter using the hashtag #nobookdeal and to contact legislators to make their opposition known.

The admission was revealed Saturday in an NJ.com article titled “The inside story of how controversial Christie bills fell.”

One Democratic lawmaker is quoted as describing the revolt against the bills as “New Jersey’s version of the Boston Tea Party.”

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