Christie Bows to Iowa’s Pork Kings on Gestation Crates

The New Jersey governor vetoed a ban on a rarely used cruel practice for pregnant pigs. In other words, as one activist noted, 'Looks like he's running in 2016.'

November 28, 2014 | Source: The Daily Beast | by Olivia Nuzzi

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The New Jersey governor vetoed a ban on a rarely used cruel practice for pregnant pigs. In other words, as one activist noted, ‘Looks like he’s running in 2016.’

“It’s a sad day,” a thick New Jersey accent greeted me on the phone the Friday after Thanksgiving. It belonged to Ray Lesniak, a Democratic state senator who had just heard the news that Gov. Chris Christie vetoed his bill, S.1921, an uncontroversial measure that would have banned the inhumane practice of keeping breeding pigs in tiny metal crates for pork production.

“I don’t see him as a good person,” Lesniak said, audibly agitated by Christie’s decision, which he charges was done to position himself as the candidate of choice for Republican primary voters in Iowa, where green-lighting the use of “gestation crates,” as they’re called, will garner nods of approval from powerful Big Pork interests.

The veto, Lesniak said, was “not unexpected, that’s for sure. His decisions are purely political.” All Christie thinks about, according to Lesniak, is “How does this help him in his national political ambitions?”

“I was hoping he would see that by signing this legislation, he would send the message that principle is more important than his personal ambitions. Unfortunately, what the governor has professed in the past-that he’ll do anything to win-trumped any sense of decency he may have left in his body.”

Lesniak sighed: “I don’t see that he has any moral compass within him.”