Gov. Christie called the report in The Sunday Star-Ledger "completely ridiculous" and "a bunch of research and a conspiracy theory in search of a story."
TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie on Monday lashed out at The Star-Ledger over a story that found the language in some of his biggest bills matches model legislation prepared by a Washington-based group that mostly caters to Republican-led states.
The governor called the report in The Sunday Star-Ledger "completely ridiculous" and "a bunch of research and a conspiracy theory in search of a story."
"I don’t even know these people, and I’ve never had any interaction with them," said Christie, who is visiting Israel and Jordan this week. He noted that he’s been invited to speak at the group’s conferences twice but has declined.
The Star-Ledger story centered on the American Legislative Exchange Council, which specializes in turning conservative ideas into bills lawmakers may use — or in some cases even copy — to propose similar legislation in their own states.
The newspaper found that at least three education reform bills backed by the governor, one executive order and one agency rule accomplish the same goals set out by ALEC, with nearly identical passages in eight instances.
The newspaper did not say how the ALEC bills got to New Jersey. Christie’s office would not name the policy advisers who wrote the bills and did not make them available for interviews.
The governor’s education bills, which would overhaul teacher tenure and add more charter school authorizers, may look like ALEC models because they are filled with very common policy tools, Christie said.
"You could pull (these policies) from any other state and they’d be very similar, because we’re all talking about the same things on tenure reform, on merit pay, on charter school reform," Christie said. "I was talking about some of these ideas during the campaign. They were ideas I got from all over the place."
Christie said he doesn’t micromanage his staff when they write bills and never asks where they obtain specific language.
"What the story was talking about was the particular guts of legislation," Christie said. "I don’t really care where that comes from. ... It doesn’t matter to me as long as the end result is a piece of legislation that tries to enact the idea that I support."
Christie said he had no opinion on whether using ALEC models is acceptable. "I haven’t given it enough thought," he said.
Administration officials say no model bills were used and that Christie’s proposals were drawn from Colorado, Indiana, New York and Washington, D.C. Documents provided through open-public-records requests showed that Christie advisers occasionally consult ALEC on other issues.
Richard Bagger, the governor’s former chief of staff, was a member of ALEC’s board of directors representing Pfizer in the early 2000s. Christie said Bagger never brought up ALEC during his two years as chief of staff.
"My conclusion from that, given what a detail-oriented guy Rich is, is that it couldn’t have been all that important to him, and it certainly couldn’t have been playing any kind of central role in my administration or he would have brought it up to me," he said.
There is nothing illegal in using ALEC model bills, but critics say the group and its members face no disclosure requirements like lobbyists do.
By Salvador Rizzo and Jenna Portnoy/Statehouse Bureau
• Editorial: It may have found a loophole, but American Legislative Exchange Council is no charity
• Some of Christie's biggest bills match model legislation from D.C. group called ALEC
• At Arizona gathering, ALEC teaches lawmakers how to turn conservative ideas into law