Inaugural Ceremony of Governor Chris Christie and Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno

Chief Justice Stuart Rabner, right, swore in Gov. Chris Christie for a second term at the War Memorial in Trenton in January.

(Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-Ledger)

By Matt Friedman and Salvador Rizzo/The Star-Ledger

TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie today will re-nominate Stuart Rabner as chief justice of the state Supreme Court, The Star-Ledger has learned.

The development is a breakthrough in negotiations between Christie and state Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester), who had been locked in a battle over New Jersey’s highest court for years, and a victory for Sweeney.

According to three sources with knowledge of the agreement, Rabner — who has been chief justice since 2007 — will be nominated by Christie for tenure, and serve until he reaches the mandatory retirement age of 70 in 2030.

Christie, in turn, will get to nominate with Sweeney's support a close ally to one of two vacant seats on the court: Superior Court Judge Lee Solomon, a Republican who previously served as president of the Board of Public Utilities.

Spokesmen for Christie and Sweeney declined to comment.

The sources requested anonymity in advance of a news conference to announce the deal scheduled for this afternoon. The remaining court vacancy would remain unfilled, the sources said, with Judge Mary Catherine Cuff, a Democrat, continuing to serve on a temporary basis. If both Rabner and Solomon are confirmed, the political balance on the court would not change from the current three Democrats, three Republicans and one independent.

With Christie’s blessing, Rabner, 53, would remain at the helm of the state Supreme Court for nearly the next two decades, with the power to shape legal precedents, assign decisions to the other justices, and run all the courthouses in New Jersey.

A Democratic appointee first installed on the court by Christie's predecessor, Gov. Jon Corzine, Rabner has written notable opinions that led to the legalization of same-sex marriage last year, that have strengthened investigative tools for law enforcement agencies, and that have enhanced New Jersey residents' privacy rights when they browse the Internet or use their cell phones.

He has also worked to overhaul New Jersey’s bail system, tackle the state’s mortgage-foreclosure crisis, and has led efforts to expedite the way criminal trials and civil hearings are conducted in New Jersey.

Rabner is a former state attorney general and a former federal prosecutor who worked for years with Christie in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Newark, and had won widespread support from New Jersey’s legal community over the last year. The New Jersey State Bar Association and 20 of 21 county bar groups had endorsed his reappointment this year.

Christie spoke highly of Rabner when Corzine first plucked him from the U.S. Attorney's office to the Statehouse. But their relationship seemed to sour once Christie was governor and Rabner was on the Supreme Court. The Republican governor made a veiled threat that he would unseat Rabner last year when the chief justice wrote an opinion that blocked Christie's plan to dismantle an affordable-housing agency. The governor's office also chafed when Rabner, in a unanimous opinion, declined to put a temporary hold on same-sex marriage last year despite Christie's pleas.

The decision to reappoint Rabner marks a turning point for Christie and the Democratic-controlled Senate. For years, Democrats resisted Christie’s attempts to reshape the high court, angry that the Republican governor ousted a sitting justice, Democrat John Wallace Jr., in an unprecedented move in 2010.

Led by Sweeney, the Democrats then turned down two of Christie’s nominees for the Supreme Court: Phillip Kwon and Bruce Harris. That, too, was unprecedented.

The rancor continued as Democrats refused to hold hearings on two other Christie nominees. One of them, Robert Hanna, eventually took a lower-court judgeship instead. The other, Superior Court Judge David Bauman, remains in limbo.

In August, the war between the two sides seemed to reach a breaking point. Christie declined to nominate a Republican justice, Helen Hoens, for tenure on the court, and she stepped down last year. He blamed Democrats for that, saying they had threatened to unseat her if she came before the Senate.

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