D.C. Dispatch: What N.J.’s members of Congress did in Washington this week

The Senate was out of town this week, but the House chugged along on making sure the government gets funded; in New Jersey, meanwhile, debates raged over what to do about President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and who, exactly, is leading the state’s U.S. Attorney’s office. Here’s some of what New Jersey’s members of Congress did in Washington this week.

Fund home

Unless things get substantially derailed in the Senate, it looks like Congress will indeed avert a government shutdown ahead of the January 30 deadline, with the House passing its four final appropriations bills before skipping town on Thursday.

One of those bills, funding the Department of Homeland Security, caused quite a bit of heartburn for Democrats, who have become increasingly unwilling to fund what they say is an out-of-control department; all eight of New Jersey’s Democratic representatives opposed the bill. “This bill includes no new guardrails against ICE’s exploding lawlessness,” Rep. Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon) said of her vote.

The other vote, however, was on a package of three appropriations bills that fund the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Defense, and drew unanimous New Jersey support. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing), the lone New Jerseyan on the Appropriations Committee (and a member of the subcommittees that wrote two of the bills), said that she was happy to have come to a compromise even if she didn’t agree with everything in the package.

“This minibus spending package restores much of the vital programs and services that Republicans had sought to deprive our communities,” Watson Coleman said. “While the Defense Department’s budget is far too large and in need of an audit, there is far more good in this bill than bad.”

It’s now up to the Senate to pass the remaining bills, after which the government will be fully and properly funded for the first time in nearly a year and a half – meaning that New Jersey will be set to at last receive hundreds of millions of dollars in state-specific projects via earmarks.

Raisin’ Brann

When Alina Habba was disqualified from service as acting U.S. Attorney in December and subsequently resigned, the Trump administration chose three prosecutors to lead different divisions of the office in the absence of a proper U.S. Attorney. Now that arrangement, too, is coming under legal scrutiny, with District Judge Matthew Brann – the judge who originally ruled against Habba last August – hearing arguments yesterday on whether it should be allowed.

Two New Jersey defendants challenged the arrangement on similar grounds as the original Habba case; the DOJ’s use of various provisions in federal appointment laws as a way of circumventing those laws’ broader intention to require judicial and congressional oversight of U.S. Attorney appointments, they argue, should not be allowed to continue.

“After failing to secure the Senate’s consent to the President’s preferred nominee for U.S. Attorney, the government has broken out a seemingly bottomless bag of tricks to prolong the vacancy and work around the vacant office as if Congress had never created it – a strategy that the President has been perfectly candid about,” the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey wrote in an amicus brief.

The DOJ, naturally, disagrees with the assertion that it erred in splitting the responsibilities of the U.S. Attorney across three officials, Philip Lamparello, Jordan Fox, and Ari Fontecchio; simultaneously, it’s also making an effort to get the entire Third Circuit to rehear the case that disqualified Habba in the first place.

Roxbury, the lede

With the Senate out of Washington this week, Senator Cory Booker took the opportunity to pay a visit to several of the sites the Trump administration is either currently using or considering using for immigrant detention.

On Wednesday, Booker went to Roxbury, where a Washington Post report says DHS is considering converting warehouses into a detention facility; then, yesterday, Booker took a tour of Delaney Hall in his hometown of Newark alongside Reps. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City) and LaMonica McIver (D-Newark), both of whom have made several prior oversight visits at the controversial facility.

After their Delaney Hall visit, Booker and the two representatives reintroduced the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act, which would phase out privately run immigrant detention facilities – Delany Hall is operated by the GEO Group, a private company – and make a variety of other reforms to the nation’s detention practices.

“Delaney Hall, and every detention center like it, are a moral stain on our country,” Booker said. “With the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act, we can move away from this system of neglect and cruelty. We can strike a blow against the corrupt for-profit prison model of incarceration. We can guarantee due process for our immigrant neighbors and ban mandatory detentions.”

What has it got in its pocket vetoeses?

Outgoing Gov. Phil Murphy pocket vetoed a noteworthy piece of immigrant-rights legislation on the way out the door on Tuesday – a state issue, of course, but one that several of New Jersey’s federal representatives had involved themselves in.

Reps. Watson Coleman, Menendez, and McIver said that they had encouraged the governor to sign a bill codifying the Immigrant Trust Directive, which limits police cooperation with federal immigration enforcement efforts. But Murphy vetoed the bill, saying that it risked opening the state up to legal challenges from the Trump administration, much to many progressive Democrats’ dismay.

The three House members, who often work together on immigration issues and have become increasingly aligned in Congress, said they plan to talk with Gov. Mikie Sherrill about a new effort to get the bill signed into law.

“We have to do everything that we can in New Jersey to protect our residents from ICE,” McIver said. “While I’m disappointed [in Murphy’s veto], I am hopeful that in the new Assembly, with our new governor, we will see the bill come back, and we’ll be able to sign it into law.”

Tinton Rises

Gov. Murphy did, however, sign a bill that allows Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch to continue providing key services even after its hospital license is transferred to a new facility in nearby Tinton Falls, resolving a long-running dispute with local Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch).

Pallone, who had taken the unusual step of publicly criticizing the governor when an earlier deal to preserve services in Long Branch fell through, said that the pilot program legislation, along with an agreement with RWJBarnabas Health to maintain the center’s emergency department and outpatient services, is good news for his constituents.

“I applaud Governor Murphy’s decision to sign this critical bill on his final day in office which will ensure that Long Branch will not lose the hospital services its community depends on,” Pallone said. “This law locks in a clear path to preserve inpatient care and a full-service emergency department at Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch, while allowing plans for a new facility in Tinton Falls to move forward responsibly.”

The grass is always Greenlander

President Trump’s erratic (and, for now, seemingly scuttled) efforts to acquire the Danish territory of Greenland set off alarm bells in Washington, and one New Jersey Republican signaled at least some level of discomfort with the president’s rhetoric this week.

In a statement released on Tuesday, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis), a close Trump ally, did not criticize the president directly and said he believed a “closer relationship” with Greenland could be “beneficial for everyone involved.” But any such discussions must be done in collaboration with Denmark, Van Drew argued, and not by force.

“The exact shape of any future relationship is something that should be discussed thoughtfully and collaboratively,” Van Drew said. “I do not support military action to make Greenland part of the United States. I also do not believe that force is necessary, appropriate, or realistic. Anything involving Greenland’s future must be cooperative. We must respect the people of Greenland, our long-standing relationship with Denmark, and our shared democratic values.”

Democrats, naturally, were much less hesitant to criticize the president directly; Senator Booker said on social media that Trump’s provocation “weakens U.S. credibility and does nothing to keep Americans safe.”

Is the Third Circuit sick of New Jersey yet

Rep. McIver filed a notice of appeal on Tuesday challenging District Judge Jamel Semper’s decision not to dismiss an assault charge against her on legislative immunity grounds.

The appeal is not a surprise, given that McIver had previously appealed a related opinion from Semper declining to toss the case against her; a ruling on one remaining charge had been delayed, and the appeal was accordingly delayed as well. Semper’s two rulings will now be combined for an appeal before the Third Circuit.

When, exactly, the appeal will be heard is another question; a previous briefing schedule was scrapped after the second half of McIver’s appeal arrived, and no new timeline has been established yet.

Other Garden State plots

• A war powers vote reining in the Trump administration in Venezuela failed on the House floor by just one vote, 215-215 (a tie was enough to sink the effort), a week after a Senate vote on the same topic similarly failed. New Jersey’s House members voted on party lines, with all three Republicans opposing the resolution.

• A bill that the House did pass, however, was the Supporting Pregnant and Parenting Women and Families Act, which allows states to use welfare funds on pregnancy support centers, a goal that ardently pro-life Rep. Chris Smith (R-Manchester) said he strongly supports.

“In a pro-abortion culture of denial that dismisses unborn babies and trivializes the harm suffered by women, pregnancy centers affirm the breathtaking miracle of unborn life and the truth that women deserve better than abortion,” Smith said on the House floor.

• Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly) said that, as part of the Transportation Department funding bill, the department will be required to “launch a full federal investigation” into New York City’s congestion pricing system, long a target for the North Jersey congressman.

“For Jersey families who already pay some of the highest taxes in the country, this outrageous Congestion Tax continues to be an outright slap in the face,” Gottheimer said. “It’s a commuter tax, plain and simple – and it targets hard-working Jersey families to bail out an MTA that refuses to get its own house in order. This bipartisan legislation that just passed the House will help fight back against the crushing Congestion Tax.”

• Reps. Gottheimer and Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) introduced a bill this week to create new reporting standards on college dorm fire safety; the bill is named the Seton Hall Fire Victims Remembrance Act, in memory of a 2000 Seton Hall dorm fire that killed three students.

“It has been twenty-six years since the Seton Hall University dormitory fire, yet the lessons of that tragedy remain urgent,” Kean said. “Today, we honor the memory of those lost by taking concrete steps to prevent future tragedies and protect today’s students nationwide.”