February 16, 2007 - 9:09pm
Press Release

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Senate Republican Leader Leonard Lance

As part of the ongoing probe into Christmas Tree items that were added to the annual state budget since 2004, the Senate Republican Office and my legislative office in my capacity as Senate Minority Leader were today served subpoenas from the U.S. Attorney s Office for the District of New Jersey.
The Republican Senate Office and I intend to comply completely and expeditiously with these subpoenas. We have been in no way involved in the dead of night budget additions of recent years. I commend U.S. Attorney Chris Christie for investigating the situation as exhaustively as possible.
There needs to be total transparency with regard to legislative additions to the annual state budget. The sponsor of each expenditure must be identified and the legislative addition must have a clearly stated public purpose. My past calls for such reform have not been heeded.
Since 2004 the budget process has become dysfunctional. This was particularly true last summer when the state government shutdown was prolonged for more than a day while at least $200 million worth of Christmas Tree items earmarked for Democratic districts were added to the budget.
The Republican members of the Legislature demand immediate reform of the process of adding legislative additions to the annual state budget.

MJENNINGS can be reached via email at mjennings@njleg.org.

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