Did George Washington fight against the American Revolution?
That’s the only way to make sense of a passage from a recent New York Times article headlined “The Business of Being Chris Christie.”
The article did an excellent job of laying out the many ways in which our former governor has cashed in on his connections since he left office in 2018.
But there was something that stood out to me. It concerned the hiring of Christie as a consultant to the DraftKings gambling site.
“Retaining Mr. Christie was a natural move for DraftKings. As governor, he had been a leading force in the push to overturn the federal law that barred sports betting in most states,” the article states.
It also quotes a former DraftKings executive calling Christie “the George Washington of internet gaming.”
“That’s totally false,” said the guy who actually led the charge to get sports betting legalized.
That’s Ray Lesniak. He’s a former state Senator from Elizabeth who initiated a lawsuit to legalize sports betting back in 2009, the year before Christie became governor.
“I had to fight him tooth-and-nail to finally get his support,” said Lesniak of Christie.
That fight began in 2009, when Lesniak filed a federal lawsuit to overturn the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992.
PASPA, as it’s known, banned sports betting in any state that hadn’t permitted it by 1993.
The previous governor, Democrat Jon Corzine, supported the suit. But when Christie took over, he “adopted almost verbatim the position of Nevada-based casinos,” which didn’t want competition, Lesniak recalled.
After the new governor refused to have the state sign on as a plaintiff in Lesniak’s suit, it was dismissed for a lack of standing.
The effort might have ended there, but Lesniak got around Christie by getting the Legislature to put a referendum on the 2011 ballot to legalize sports-betting.
That passed by a 64-36 margin.
In 2014, Lesniak exploited a loophole in the government’s legal argument. Even though it was illegal for a state to set up new regulations for sports betting, there was nothing in the law that prevented a state from simply repealing its ban on sports betting, he argued.
But Lesniak needed a test case to get the issue back before the court. To that end, he got the Legislature to pass a bill repealing New Jersey’s regulations on sports betting. Christie promptly vetoed it.
“Ignoring federal law, rather than working to reform federal standards, is counter to our democratic traditions and inconsistent with the Constitutional values I have sworn to defend and protect,” Christie wrote in his veto message.
Actually, what’s inconsistent with our constitutional values is the idea that the federal government can tell the states what laws to pass. The 10th Amendment, which Lesniak cited in his suit, states that the powers not expressly granted to the federal government remain with the states and with the people.
And the people were riled up by Christie’s veto. With Atlantic City casinos going out of business, the state’s gambling industry needed a new source of revenue.
Lesniak began gathering support for an override of Christie’s veto. That led the George Washington of online gaming to adopt the tactics of Benedict Arnold. He switched sides.
When the Legislature passed another legalization bill, Christie signed it. Citing the same appellate court opinion that he’d cited in his veto message, the governor said he now concluded that the court “made clear that New Jersey was free to remove prohibitions against sports wagering.”
In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court not only upheld New Jersey’s right to repeal its sports-betting regulations. It also declared PASPA unconstitutional on the 10th Amendment grounds that Lesniak first put forward.
On Oct. 26 of that year, the sports betting windows at Monmouth Park opened for business. As the leader of the successful revolution, Lesniak was given the honor of making the first bet.
“My biggest beef is that I came up with the 10th Amendment challenge to PASPA while legal ‘experts’ and Christie derided its chances and Christie, despite denying me three times, is taking credit for it,” said Lesniak.
Christie was out of office by then, but he wasn’t out of business. The Times report reveals that he met with DraftKings two days after his term ended and soon was put on their payroll.
“Christie did something Donald Trump would be proud of: He took credit for someone else’s work,” said Lesniak. “He’s talented.”
He certainly is. But is he talented enough to take George Washington’s old job?
I wouldn’t bet on it.
More: Recent Paul Mulshine columns.
Paul Mulshine may be reached at [email protected].
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