A Democratic-led workaround to bring a Senate-passed foreign aid bill up for a vote on the House floor has the support of all nine Democratic House members from New Jersey, though Democrats will need some Republican support for their effort to succeed.
The discharge petition, as it’s called, is a mechanism to allow for a majority of House members to force votes on bills outside of standard procedure and against the wishes of House leadership. The petition currently under debate, which would bypass GOP leaders’ opposition to a Senate bill providing aid for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and Gaza, has 177 signatories overall, all of them Democrats; in order to be successful, it would need 218 signatures.
Seven New Jersey Democrats – Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing), Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair), Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson), Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City), Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch), Josh Gottheimer (D-Wyckoff), and Donald Norcross (D-Camden) – have signed on to the effort so far.
“A majority of the Senate supports meeting our security commitments and a majority of the House does too,” Pascrell said in a statement. “At long last it is time for Republicans to heed the will of the majority and support our democratic allies… If the Speaker does not do his patriotic duty, the House must force his hand through a discharge petition.”
Two other Democrats, Reps. Donald Payne Jr. (D-Newark) and Andy Kim (D-Moorestown), have not yet signed on but plan to do so at the beginning of next week. House members need to be present in-person to sign discharge petitions; Payne said he wasn’t able to sign before the week’s session abruptly ended on Wednesday, while Kim was not in Washington at all this week.
“I support the discharge petition to vote on the Senate-passed bill and will sign it when the House reconvenes next week,” Kim said yesterday. “I am tired of Speaker Johnson abusing his power to play politics with our national security by blocking the House from deciding.”
Kim’s opponent in this year’s Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, First Lady Tammy Murphy, tried to make a campaign issue out of the discharge petition this morning, saying that Kim’s lack of signature is evidence of his “failing to stand up for New Jersey.” But given that Kim has already said he intends to sign the petition the moment he gets the opportunity, it’s hard to imagine the attack will stick for long.
As for New Jersey Republicans, two of them, Reps. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) and Chris Smith (R-Manchester), have already expressed serious doubts about the Senate’s foreign aid bill, so they seem extraordinarily unlikely to sign onto any Democratic-led discharge efforts.
More interesting is Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) – a swing-district congressman, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, and a self-proclaimed staunch ally of both Ukraine and Israel. If Democrats wanted to pick up a few Republican supporters for their petition, Kean might be a decent prospect; Kean’s office did not respond to a request for comment on that possibility.
Kean could also instead support a separate discharge petition, led by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania), to force a vote on an alternate bipartisan House bill that links aid for Ukraine and Israel with conservative changes to immigration laws. One New Jerseyan, Gottheimer, is among the 14 House members who have signed on to that effort.
The Senate passed its $95 billion bill last month on a bipartisan 70-29 vote, with New Jersey Senators Cory Booker and Bob Menendez both voting in favor.