Amid the post-Parkland shooting uproar, Murphy proceeds with caution

Phil Murphy is vowing to be a man of action, but so far he's been the careful governor of audits.

In an interview with Politico earlier this week, New Jersey's high-energy Happy Warrior governor mocked the hollow expressions of sympathy in the wake of the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting massacre that left 17 people dead and an anguished nation looking for answers.

"I’m all for the ‘thoughts and prayers’ and ‘our hearts are with you,’ and symbols matter and words matter, but this is a time for action,'' Murphy said.

Yet Murphy was hardly the dashing action hero on Tuesday as he detailed his month-old administration's response to the Parkland shootings. So far he's shown a preference for caution and deliberation. He prefers the baby step over the knee-jerk response.

Since taking office, Murphy has ordered audits of New Jersey Transit and the state's tax incentive programs, and a review of the medical marijuana program. And amid the uproar over Parkland, he vowed a review of "current protocols," namely a look at how past tips about troubled or potentially dangerous students have been acted upon or ignored.

This focus on audits is not without irony. Murphy, after all, last year vanquished Republican challenger Kim Guadagno, whose centerpiece plan to lower property taxes was built on a promise of squeezing millions in savings from a sweeping audit of state services.

But audits play a strategic function: They postpone the gritty, unglamorous side of governing. Murphy is in his honeymoon, a time of smiling goodwill photo-op moments like Wednesday's, when he signed a bill restoring funding for women's health programs such as Planned Parenthood clinics.

Murphy has also shown a penchant for public relations. At the post-Parkland press conference, Murphy adhered to the time-honored tradition of packaging together a bunch of small-bore, administrative steps and legislative plans and offering them up as a sweeping, multi-pronged response to a crisis.

"I think any parent watching should feel that we are doing everything we can,'' Murphy said a Trenton news conference. "A parent should take away that this isn't a top priority but a whole-of-government priority."

But some of those "priorities" had the sound of hastily arranged talking points prepared by bureaucrats for a hastily arranged press conference. There was some general talk of beefing up cooperation between law enforcement and school officials. Hotline numbers were announced.

There was a recitation of statistics about "active-shooter drills" conducted by school districts. Lt. Col. Patrick J. Callahan, superintendent of the state police, talked about how troopers will make more frequent visits to school districts under state police watch, a pitch that sounded more like a recruitment drive.

And there was the promise to move swiftly on laws that restrict the possession and use of guns and a yet-to-be-announced regional compact with neighboring states to clamp down on gun trafficking.

No one will accuse Murphy of being a late-comer to gun control issues — it was the centerpiece of his campaign. But he's a newcomer to elected office, and for now he's vowing to proceed with caution, tip-toeing along the learning curve by ordering audits and reviews, holding carefully controlled media events with limited questions from the press, and deferring to his Cabinet and aides to do the explaining — something that rarely happened when alpha-male Chris Christie was in charge.

It should be noted that Christie, too, took a deliberative approach after the Sandy Hook elementary school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012. The state was clamoring for swift passage of gun laws — such as reducing the capacity of gun magazine from 15 to 10 rounds of ammunition, a bill he later vetoed.

Christie said he was adopting the cool-headed "adult-in-the-room" posture, the executive who promised to act with common sense, not emotion.

Yet he was also seeking a political path, how to carefully placate the state's more moderate, pro-gun-control voters without alienating Second Amendment enthusiasts in New Hampshire and Iowa and other states along the path to the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

Christie also assembled a blue-ribbon panel, co-chaired by former state Supreme Court Associate Justice Peter Verniero, that recommended improving mental-health services to prevent crises, expanding the school resource officer program used in many districts, and limiting access to violent video games. And it recommended new restrictions on guns. Most of the recommendations were ignored. Verniero has dusted off that report and shared it with Murphy officials.

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Murphy may take Verniero's report — Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal called it an excellent report. But so far, he has no intention of relying on the Christie playbook for advice on how to govern. Christie adopted a top-down executive style. He was the boss who ruled with fear, who surrounded himself with a small circle of tight-lipped loyalists. And he dealt with only a few legislative leaders and largely ignored input from everybody else.

Christie relished the role of the near-imperial executive, unconcerned if his actions offended the prerogatives of local officials and judges. Murphy is careful not to overreach.

"You deal with local jurisdictions here, so to the extent that you mandate versus work-with, you have to be conscious of that,'' Murphy said. "This all can't be top-down, big-footing."

Christie mocked his critics and gave passing mention to supporters; Murphy, the ex-diplomat, is relentlessly positive, thanking everyone in the room. Christie mocked Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg as a nuisance and urged reporters to take "a bat" to her. Murphy was onstage Wednesday hailing her as a stubborn hero of women's health who refused to give up on restoring the $7.45 million Christie cut from Planned Parenthood clinics. Christie vetoed eight attempts to restore the funding.

Candidate Murphy vowed to restore that funding, and Governor Murphy carried out that promise Wednesday. It was the first bill he signed into law. He did it with Weinberg on the stage and the room packed with Planned Parenthood supporters in pink shirts.

"“Today we are saying in a clear voice that New Jersey will once again stand for the right things,” he said. “New Jersey will once again stand up for women’s health.”

It was an event that was an ideal Murphy moment. A chance to praise and shine in the spotlight as a new governor, with new values, who delivered swiftly on a campaign promise. It was an easy lift.

But in several weeks he will offer his first state budget to the Legislature. It will be time to put actual hard dollars to his priorities and cuts to others. The Legislature, controlled by his own party, will get its first glimpses of winners and losers of the Murphy era.

He will no longer be able to postpone a decision by waiting for the findings of a promised review or audit.