Democrats to try to override Christie on gun bill
New Jersey lawmakers are set to spar over gun legislation Thursday in a debate overshadowed by presidential and gubernatorial politics.
New Jersey lawmakers are set to spar over gun legislation Thursday in a debate overshadowed by presidential and gubernatorial politics.
Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D., Gloucester), a possible candidate for governor in 2017, has vowed to try a second time to override Gov. Christie's veto of a bill unanimously passed by the Legislature that would require certain people seeking to expunge their mental-health records in order to buy a firearm to notify law enforcement of their petition.
The override has little chance of succeeding; Senate Democrats came up a couple votes short last month when they attempted to best Christie on the same bill. Some lawmakers missed or did not cast a vote.
Although Democrats control both houses of the Legislature, they don't have sufficient majorities to override Christie's vetoes without GOP support. Sweeney has threatened to dispatch state police to round up senators to participate if they don't show up Thursday.
"It's our obligation to try to prevent tragedies from occurring here like the ones that have taken the innocent lives of children in elementary schools and young people on college campuses across our country," bill sponsor Fred Madden (D., Gloucester) wrote in commentary published Wednesday in the Newark Star-Ledger.
For his part, Christie, a GOP presidential candidate, has pushed for broader changes in the state's mental-health system. He also has pointed to Republicans' refusal to override his vetoes as evidence of his ability to unite his party, in contrast, he says, to the fractured GOP in Congress. Democrats have tried and failed to override more than 50 Christie vetoes.
At issue Thursday is a bill that would affect individuals who were previously committed to a mental-health facility but who say they have recovered and want to purchase a gun.
To do so, they need to have their mental-health records expunged. About 50 people a year petition the courts in New Jersey on such matters, according to the Administrative Office of the Courts.
Judges review the circumstances of applicants' mental health and criminal histories, as well as their reputation in the community. Judges are required to expunge the record of applicants found unlikely to endanger public safety.
The bill would require petitioners who live in New Jersey to notify law enforcement there of their request to erase their records. Those who live in other states but who were committed in New Jersey would be required to notify law enforcement in their current state.
Supporters of the bill note that authorities might have unique information regarding pending charges against a petitioner, for example.
"The judges really struggle with this now," Dan Phillips, legislative liaison for the Administrative Office of the Courts, told a Senate panel in January. "It's a really important loophole to close in the law, so that we're assured of public safety."
Records such as a mental-health commitment are transmitted to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which firearms dealers are required to consult before a sale. Having been committed is one reason an individual could fail a background check.
The bill passed the Senate by 39-0 in March, and the Assembly approved it by 74-0 in June.
But some Senate Republicans who voted in favor of the legislation changed their position after Christie vetoed the bill in August.
The governor said at the time that he couldn't support "patchwork proposals" and asked the Legislature to take up a "comprehensive" mental-health measure he had proposed.
Since then, Senate Minority Leader Thomas H. Kean Jr. (R., Union) introduced what he described as a compromise bill that includes Christie's recommendations, and expands on the original bill by requiring that everyone who seeks to expunge records of involuntary commitment - not just those who are doing so for the purpose of buying a gun - notify law enforcement.
Kean said this addition was needed to ensure equal treatment under the law.
Among ideas recommended by Christie are provisions that establish what the governor described as a "medically sound set of standards" for evaluating whether someone should be involuntarily committed to outpatient treatment. Such factors include the individual's compliance with treatment and history of violence.
In addition, people who have been involuntarily committed for mental-health treatment would be prohibited from obtaining a firearms purchaser identification card or handgun permit unless they are cleared by a doctor.
"We have a unique opportunity, I believe, to expand an incomplete bill," Kean said.
Sweeney said he would not allow a vote on Kean's bill even if the Democrats' override fails.
"It stigmatizes people with mental health" issues, Sweeney said Monday.
A coalition of New Jersey mental-health organizations echoed that position in a statement Tuesday, saying Kean's bill perpetuated stigma against the mentally ill by pairing gun violence and mental illness.
But it wasn't clear why that same critique didn't apply to the original bill Christie vetoed. The chair of the coalition, Barbara Johnston of the Mental Health Association in New Jersey, didn't return a message seeking comment Wednesday.
The Administrative Office of the Courts has not taken a position on Kean's bill.
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@AndrewSeidman