Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno. | AP Photo Christie's lieutenant governor goes rogue

Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno staked her independence from Gov. Chris Christie on Thursday morning, in a highly public break with the governor who had plucked her from relative obscurity to serve as his running mate.

Christie and Guadagno racked up impressive margins sharing the ticket in 2009, and again in 2013, but have seldom appeared in public together in recent years, as Christie's poll numbers cratered and tensions between the two simmered behind the scenes.


In a radio interview on Thursday morning, Guadagno went public with their breach, contradicting the administration’s position on a major ballot measure by suggesting voters can blow up a hard-won $16 billion infrastructure plan by opposing the amendment.

Less than 15 minutes after Guadagno’s remarks on New Jersey 101.5 FM, the governor’s office emailed reporters saying that “it must be a misunderstanding” — the first public rebuke of a woman who has, at least nominally, served as the governor's top lieutenant for nearly seven years.

But, as Guadagno quickly made clear, there was no misunderstanding. At a news conference in Trenton on Thursday afternoon, she said she “was concerned and did my own research and took my own position.”

It was the first clear sign that Guadagno, widely considered a top contender for the Republican nomination for governor, will distance herself from Christie — a deeply unpopular executive who has kept her at arm’s length since they took office in 2010.

While she has not officially declared her candidacy, Guagadno appears to be laying the groundwork for a primary campaign against Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli and any other Republicans who decide to join the race.

In April, Guadagno helped launch a nonprofit think tank that could help further her campaign, and the group soon hired Bill Stepien, Christie’s former campaign manager, to lead its efforts.

Recent testimony in the George Washington Bridge lane closure trial made it clear Guagadno and Christie have had a "tense" relationship for some time, though she had never publicly contradicted the governor in such bold terms.

“She is very clearly saying, ‘I’m my own person. I’m not Chris Christie’s clone. I’m not Chris Christie’s lapdog,” Matthew Hale, a political science professor at Seton Hall University, said on Thursday. “I think the story is, she’s not doing exactly what the governor says.”

Ciattarelli had the same thought.

“It’s all pretty curious," he said in a phone interview. "Is this Kim’s way of trying to separate herself from the governor?"

Guadagno had already made clear she opposes the 23-cent gas tax increase Christie signed into law earlier this month, but on Thursday she went a step further, saying voters should reject a constitutional amendment that would guarantee the tax revenue is spent on infrastructure projects.

“What’s done can be undone,” Guadagno said in an interview with conservative radio and TV personality Bill Spadea, a former congressional candidate who had become a chief opponent of the gas tax increase.

She said that the ballot question was directly related to whether the state could borrow money for infrastructure projects. Its defeat would, in essence, prevent the state from borrowing the $12 billion it needs to support projects under the Transportation Trust Fund.

“A vote for question number two is a vote for the gas tax. If you like the gas tax then you’re going to like number two,” Guadagno said in reference to the ballot question. “Flip it around — if you oppose the gas tax then you have to vote against number two because it requires them all to go back to the drawing board because they can’t borrow the money they need to make it work.”

New Jersey voters favored the amendment in a Fairleigh-Dickinson poll released on Monday, but 45 percent of Republicans opposed its passage, compared with 40 percent who support it. Fifty-six percent of Republicans said the gas tax should remain the same.

Christie spokesman Brian Murray responded to Guadagno's comments in a statement that said the governor supports ballot question two because “it protects taxpayers from future wasteful spending by Democrat legislators.”

“The Governor finds it hard to believe that the Lieutenant Governor supports giving an unguarded pot of money to the Democrat-controlled legislature, rather than on needed infrastructure projects. It must be a misunderstanding,” he wrote in an email.

Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto, who helped negotiate the compromise, questioned whether the lieutenant governor had read the ballot question, saying she “seems to have a complete and total misunderstanding of the ballot question, which is very troublesome.”

“The lieutenant governor doubles as the Secretary of State, who is in charge of our elections. Has our elections chief even read the ballot question?” he wrote in an emailed statement.

Guadagno appears to have hit upon a vulnerability in the compromise. The ballot measure, with its simple wording, guarantees only that the gas tax revenue be dedicated for infrastructure purposes. But the law authorizing the eight-year infrastructure plan says its $12 billion in borrowing power is “contingent upon voter approval” of the constitutional amendment.

“If you read the ballot question and compare it to the gas tax legislation, it's really apples and oranges,” Guadagno said at an unrelated event at the New Jersey State Museum.

“I was concerned and did my own research and took my own position about if people should support ballot question number two,” she said. “I think people should not support ballot question number two until they do the same thing. I talked to the governor’s staff, I talked to other experts on my own.”

If voters defeat the measure, the state would — technically — not be able to run its infrastructure program the way the law intends. Voters would still be required to pay the gas tax increase, but the revenue would not necessarily be used to leverage more funding through bond sales.

The issue is complicated by a 2008 constitutional amendment that requires most borrowing be approved by voters. That requirement does not apply to debt that is repaid using state revenue sources that are “constitutionally dedicated for specific uses,” according to Tom Hester Jr., a spokesman for Prieto.

Hester said Guadagno is not correct in suggesting the legislation “would have to start again from scratch.”

“That’s wrong,” he wrote in an email. “The gas tax is set and the ballot question does not impact the gas tax, and opposing the ballot question means supporting the option of using gas tax revenue for any budget need, which is inappropriate use of that revenue.”

Ciattarelli, a Somerset County Republican and a declared candidate for governor next year, said he found Guadagno's position odd. He voted against the gas tax increase, but said that's all the more reason to vote for the ballot measure.

"People overwhelmingly support dedicated taxes being in a lockbox," he said. "That’s what guarantees that those taxes are used for their intended purpose. Even if there is no increase in the gas tax, they should be in a lockbox and used only for road projects. It drives taxpayers absolutely crazy when taxes are not used for their intended purpose. That’s the whole point of this ballot question.”

The move by Guadagno comes after testimony during the George Washington Bridge lane closure trial in Newark revealed she has had a frosty relationship with the governor for years now.

Defendant Bridget Anne Kelly, who was a deputy chief of staff to Christie, testified last week that the governor did not want Guadagno to attend important meetings. Kelly described how Guadagno, a former sheriff who is the state's first lieutenant governor, was allowed to attend only certain public events.

“It was a little tense,” Kelly said in U.S. District Court last Friday. "There were times where she was kind of put in a box."

"It was a stressful relationship,” she said.

Katherine Landergan contributed to this report.