Chris Christie

Gov. Chris Christie in the Statehouse: He argues the Statehouse needs $300 million in renovations but any borrowing must go to the voters according to the state constitution..

(Mel Evans/AP photo)

Last week, Gov. Christie called a snap press conference in the Rotunda of the Statehouse for a surprise announcement.

Many in the media speculated the surprise would be that he'd finally found a home in the incoming Trump Administration.

But it turned out that the surprise was an announcement that he plans to spend $300 million renovating the governor's wing of the Statehouse.

I've got a surprise for the governor: He has no more say in the matter than you, me and the woman who sells me coffee at the snack shop in the Statehouse basement.

Actually I'd trust her more than Christie on this. He spent half of last year running around the country and he's only got a little more than a year left in his term. She's there every day.

But a whole lot of people will be leaving the Statehouse under the grandiose plan that Christie sprung on us. He wants to move 265 executive branch employees out of the building this summer so the four-year renovation can take place.

That's his goal anyway. But that's where you, me and the lady who sells coffee come in.

This is our decision, not the governor's.

The state's 1947 constitution requires a public vote on any major bond issues. The idea was to keep down borrowing, but governors of both parties kept finding ways to get around it. So in 2008, voters approved an amendment meant to close those loopholes.

It is commonly called "the Lance Amendment" and it's named after Leonard Lance of Hunterdon County, then a state senator and now a Congressman - but always a crusader against public debt.

When I got him on the phone last week, Lance said it appears that any effort by Christie to borrow that $300 million would have to go before the voters.

"If I were still in the Legislature, I would respectfully ask of the state Treasurer why this doesn't have to go to the people for approval," Lance said. "There may be an answer to that, but the answer doesn't come to mind readily."

No, it doesn't. When I asked Christie's office how the plan would be financed, I was told only that "Treasury is currently working with EDA and stakeholders to plan the financing for the project."

EDA stands for "Economic Development Authority." That authority is exactly the sort of "instrumentality of the State" that is prohibited by the amendment from borrowing without voter approval.

And just who are the "stakeholders?" You and me, that's who. We own the Statehouse. And we get stuck with the debt. So we each get one vote on it.

So does the governor - but only as a private citizen when it is "submitted to the people at a general election and approved by a majority of the legally qualified voters of the State voting thereon," as the constitution states.

The earliest that can happen is November. Yet there was Christie last week standing under the Capitol Rotunda and saying things like "work will begin immediately" and "We will absolutely evacuate this building no later than July."

No, you won't, said the state's other leading debt hawk. That's ultraconservative former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, who started the "Stop the Debt" movement back when Republican Christie Whitman was running up our credit-card bills.

"We're gonna have to reconstitute Stop the Debt and we're gonna have to fight this," said Lonegan, who narrowly lost to Christie in the 2009 GOP gubernatorial primary. "They have no money for roads and bridges, but now he has money to redecorate a wing of the Statehouse?"

Lonegan, who led a successful effort in 2007 to defeat a $450 million bond issue for stem-cell research, said he'll go to court if Christie tries to bond for the $300 million without voter approval.

If this plan does go on the ballot, I suspect it will be voted down.

It's mainly the office space in the historic 1792 Statehouse that needs updating. But members of the public rarely enter those offices. I doubt they'd vote to borrow all that money to turn that place into "a Taj Mahal for politicians," as one critic put it.

As for the public sections, most visitors see only a short section of the executive wing as they move toward the legislative wing, which was updated in the 1980s.

The main thing they see on that short walk is the Rotunda. It looks great - thanks to the other recent governor named Christie. In the 1990s, Christie Whitman's late husband John led a "Dimes for the Dome" fund-raising effort to rebuild that deteriorating dome and brought the massive project in under budget at a mere $9.5 million.

I'll vote for that approach. So would you, I imagine.

Let's hope we get the opportunity.

NOTE: Comments are now on.

BELOW: Here's the press conference in full. Frankly I was a bit surprised by the opening in which the governor asserted the current conditions are an embarrassment. I visit at least once a week and I never noticed that. The sections that most visitors normally see look perfectly fine.

The office space may be antiquated, but the public rarely if ever enters there. Most visitors just walk under the beautiful Rotunda to the Legislature wing, which was renovated in the 1980s. That's where the public interacts with the government. Very little such interaction takes place in the Statehouse executive wing. In fact some of the offices are locked so the public can't enter.

Note at the 6:00 mark where Christie says the building needs to be brought up to fire code and Americans with Disabilities Act standards.The Statehouse already has elevators and ramps. And as for fire, it's made out of marble and as one legislator remarked, "It hasn't burned down since 1792."

Christie also said he wants the rebuilt building to have security screening in some outside of the main building. That would require that some sort of structure be built in front of the grand entranceway on State Street.

All of these things would be nice if we were starting from scratch. But there's a point at which tradition should be respected and an old building should just be left alone.