All but one of Monday's budget restoration votes failed 24-15 strictly along party lines. The only Republican affirmative vote came from Sen. Jennifer Beck of Monmouth County, who broke ranks with her party to endorse restoring $7.5 million to clinics that provide reproductive and gynecological services to young, poor and underinsured women. That measure failed 25-14 while the GOP governor was out of state for a two-week business trip and family vacation.

"It's amazing the governor is 2,500 miles away, but the effects and the control he has reaches great distance," Senate President Stephen Sweeney said after the votes. "Today was a very sad day when you think about the programs that were cut."

Sweeney and the Democratic majority say Christie used his line-item veto power to slash programs his political enemies hold dear, like a $450,000 appropriation to post-partum education, a program championed by former Democratic Gov. Dick Codey, or $537,000 for an Essex County treatment center for sexually and physically abused children that is headed by a lawyer who challenged Christie publicly. Both items were included in Christie's original budget but cut at the last minute; Christie said Democrats had sent him a budget that was out of balance and needed to be trimmed.