A furious New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie yesterday tore into the state’s teachers union for circulating a memo that featured a prayer for his death.
“To pray for my death” is “beyond the pale,” said Christie, who has long been waging war against the New Jersey Education Association.
The newly elected Republican governor made it clear that he was speaking about the union leaders, not the state’s teachers.
“I’m sure there are teachers all across New Jersey who . . . are going to be ashamed. Ashamed to be a part of a union leadership that would actually pray for the death of an elected official,” Christie said.
“I wonder what the children of New Jersey will think when the leadership of the teachers union is praying for the governor to die?”
The NJEA memo included a mock “prayer” suggesting Christie should suffer the same fate as Patrick Swayze, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson and celebrity pitchman Billy Mays, all of whom recently died.
It was signed by NJEA field representatives and distributed to union members in Bergen County, The Record of Hackensack reported.
The note also was posted on an NJEA Facebook page called “New Jersey Teachers United Against Governor Chris Christie’s Pay Freeze,” which has 67,000 members.
Trying to blunt a public-relations disaster, NJEA President Barbara Keshishian condemned the inflammatory joke and apologized to Christie.
“Language such as that has no place in civil discourse. It was intended as humor, but it’s not funny,” Keshishian said in a statement.
“Our ongoing discussion with Gov. Christie is centered on serious issues of significant importance to the state, and that must be the focus of all our conversation. We deeply regret that the ‘prayer’ reference was included in the letter, and we apologize to Gov. Christie for both the content of the ‘prayer’ and the lack of respect it demonstrated,” she said.
One union official said the prayer was never meant to go public.
But Christie didn’t let union leaders off the hook.
“They have finally lifted their veil. I don’t think it’s a threat. I think it’s a wish. A wish in some ways might be more perverse than a threat,” Christie said.
“They said they didn’t intend it to be public,” he said. “So private prayer for my death would have been OK? Public prayer for my death somehow is not OK?”
Christie said the incendiary remarks confirmed his assertion that NJEA leaders are “the bullies of State Street,” where most state government offices are located in Trenton.
The governor said New Jersey’s educational system has been living large and costs must be reined in during tough times.
He said employment in Garden State schools shot up 16 percent the past eight years — five times more than the modest 3 percent increase in student enrollment.
“There’s work to be done, but candidly I don’t think the work needs to be done on my side. When you have the leadership of this place so out of touch that they’re praying for the death of an elected official . . . I think they need to re-evaluate who they are and what they’re doing,” Christie said.
In order to close a yawning budget deficit, Christie has proposed to slash state aid to school districts by $820 million and urged teachers to accept a one-year pay freeze.
The union rejects cuts and pay freezes, and is circulating another letter to members saying they have “no confidence” in Christie.
In his campaign for governor last year against Democrat Jon Corzine, Christie made it clear he wouldn’t be the teachers union’s pet and slammed the NJEA as defenders of a failed status quo.