FILL-IN GUY: Attorney General Jeff Chiesa (left), an old friend of Chris Christie, yesterday accepts the Jersey governor’s appointment to fill Frank Lautenberg’s Senate seat until October’s special election. Chiesa said he won’t run. (
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New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie yesterday named state Attorney General Jeff Chiesa — one of his oldest friends and closest advisers — as an interim replacement for US Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who died this week.
Chiesa, 47, a Republican, said he won’t run in October, when Christie has ordered a special election to fill the seat through 2014.
Chiesa has known Christie for 22 years. He worked with Christie at the US Attorney’s Office, was the director of Christie’s transition team in 2009, and for two years worked as Christie’s chief counsel before Christie nominated him as attorney general.
“There are very few people in my life I know better than Jeff,” Christie said at a Trenton press conference, adding that he knew Chiesa “almost as well as I know my own family.”
Lautenberg died on Monday after 30 years in the Senate.
The next day, Christie announced his appointee would not complete Lautenberg’s term. Instead, a special election would be held on Oct. 16 and the winner would finish Lautenberg’s term through 2014.
That drew swift criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike who said Christie’s choice was self-serving. Their feelings were that Christie also could have chosen to hold the election on Nov. 5, when his name will be on the ballot in the governor’s race, but doing so likely would have brought more Democrats to the polls.
“I understand I was confronted with a set of imperfect choices,” Christie said, defending his decision.
In choosing Chiesa, Christie passed over GOP state Sens. Joe Kyrillos and Tom Kean Jr., who have both in recent years run and lost against New Jersey’s other US senator, Democrat Bob Menendez.
David Samson, the chairman of the Port Authority, told The Post Chiesa’s intellectual and analytic skills were among the finest he’s seen and said his acumen for public policy would serve him well.
“He has all the tools he needs to do a first-rate job,” Samson said.
Though he has never run for public office, Chiesa quipped that when confronted with the offer to become a US senator, “there was no arm twisting.”
Calling himself a conservative Republican, Chiesa said the first thing he wanted to work on was to “make the border secure.”
Christie’s decision to hold a special election sent potential contenders scrambling because the primary will be held in August and the deadline for candidates to file papers is Monday.
Among the Democrats who have already thrown their hat in the ring are U.S. liberal Rep. Rush Holt, who is also a rocket scientist, has declared he’ll run, and fellow Democrats Rep. Frank Pallone and Newark Mayor Cory Booker are considering it. Former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan is the lone Republican to declare.