TRENTON — Democratic legislative leaders appear to be on a collision course over a controversial plan to overhaul the state’s higher education system and medical institutions.

Assembly Speaker Shelia Oliver (D-Essex) told Democratic colleagues in a closed-door meeting Thursday that she had no plans to meet a July 1 deadline Gov. Chris Christie set for the sweeping reorganization, according to two sources who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for the caucus.

At one point, the sources said, Oliver called the timetable of the hard-charging governor a “fiction.”

But Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) said today he was working on a much more urgent timetable, setting the stage for a showdown with the trappings of a classic Trenton drama. It would not be the first time the two legislative leaders clashed over policy issues.

More>>