This is the fifth in a series of in-person, in-depth New Jersey Globe interviews with New Jersey’s 14 members of Congress. The interviews will be published as-is, with editing for length and clarity.
This week, the Globe spoke with Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing), a five-term Democrat from Mercer County who serves on the House Appropriations Committee. The Globe sat down with Watson Coleman to talk about the war in Gaza, her thoughts on New Jersey’s Democratic Senate primary, debates over taxation and government funding in the House, and more.
Previous interviews: Rep. Andy Kim, Rep. Chris Smith, Rep. Bill Pascrell, Rep. Rob Menendez
New Jersey Globe: When you were elected in 2014, you were the only woman in the New Jersey congressional delegation; now there are two women, you and Mikie Sherrill. You’re still the only woman of color to ever represent New Jersey. Why do you think New Jersey has been slow on that? What do you think can change to address that longstanding lack?
Bonnie Watson Coleman: I think that’s a really interesting question. New Jersey is probably one of the most diverse states in the nation. We’re small, we’re compressed, and we kind of know each other. But the political mechanisms that order who gets to be the candidate, who gets the valued position on the ballot, who gets to be supported – that had generally been controlled by white men who were most comfortable with advancing people that they knew best, which were white men.
For someone like me, who even had her father as an elected official – he had to go through hoops as a Black man. When it was determined that I was going to run for the State Assembly [in 1997], it wasn’t excitedly embraced. It was like, ‘Okay, Bonnie, go do what you’ve got to do. Good luck to you.’ It’s just that whole old boys’ network. I think we see less of it now, but it still exists.
What could change that might bring about the full inclusion of everybody that you’d want to see?
First of all, I think that people need to be more actively engaged. Those who are in these positions of authority need to know what’s on the minds of the everyday person who you want to get out and vote. People change things. And so I think that even in the Senate race that we’re having right now – you’ve got four really great candidates, two who are pretty well known. But the system, and the folks who are in charge of the various county mechanisms, are finding out that the voters, even in conventions, really want to have their expression heard. Younger voters in particular are really pushing back on this notion of a few people being in control of who’s going to run. We’re really grateful to have that kind of energy, and we need to look at it as an opportunity for growth and expanding representation, and not view it as disruption.
All four Senate candidates [Tammy Murphy, Andy Kim, Patricia Campos-Medina, and Larry Hamm] are really smart. I know all four of them well, and any one of them could ably represent the state of New Jersey.
You’re one of the few New Jersey politicians who has really tried to stay neutral in that Senate race. As an outside observer, what are your thoughts on the race and what it means for New Jersey politics?
I think that it means there’s going to be more participation. It’s going to tweak the conscience and the commitment and responsibility of people who might otherwise not get involved in primary races.
This is such a critical time for us, with the [presidential] election coming up. It’s going to be the binary choice of a person who has 91 felony counts against him, and has demonstrated corruption and ineptness in almost everything he’s done, and mean-spiritedness. And scary stuff, like threatening NATO nations that if you don’t pay your fair share, I’m going to let crazy-ass Putin go after you, that kind of stuff. Versus Joe Biden, who has done things through his authority on student debt forgiveness, lowering costs of prescriptions, access to affordable health care, the biggest climate change bill in our history, a commitment to unions and workers.
I think what’s happening as a result of this New Jersey race is that in New Jersey, we’re going to see more participation. And we need to see that. But I think it’s also going to catch on in other states. You see things happening just around the issue of protecting a woman’s autonomy over her body. Whatever she decides, it’s her healthcare, her decision. One presidential candidate thinks one thing; President Joe Biden supports a woman’s right to choose.
You’ve got these Senate candidates out there right now who are quite respectful of one another, given that this is a tough race in New Jersey. They’re really firing up people. The result of that has got to be good. And young people are so vitally important to this – I love seeing what’s going on in campus life, and students taking on these issues from gun safety to a woman’s reproductive rights to lowering costs and making sure you’re considering people over politics.
Which is something that I think is really important right now: people get that when you think of us, Democrats, that it’s about people over politics, lowering costs and elevating life. Young people need to see that. We need to be covering that, you guys need to be covering that – whether it’s student loans, or access to housing, or access to medications, whatever. They’ve got to understand what moves the needle on behalf of their wellbeing. And that’s our job to get that message out.
Since you mentioned the presidential election, there’s been a lot of press coverage and a lot of people talking about Joe Biden being old, about how people don’t know what he’s done, this and that. Are you concerned about that heading into this election?
I am concerned that Republicans have engaged in such lying, such misstatements, that they’re trying to create a scenario that does not exist. Joe Biden may be 81, but look at what he did, from the CHIPS Act, to the PACT Act, to the IRS bill, the infrastructure bill that everybody’s talked about for generations but couldn’t get off the ground. This man knows government. He knows the importance of working families. He knows the importance of protecting those that have the least among us and have the greatest need. I tell people, when they say something about, ‘He didn’t do this’ – well, look at what he did do. Don’t listen to 30-second soundbites by people who have demonstrated already that they can’t govern, don’t govern, and don’t want to govern. And don’t listen to a presidential candidate that could open his mouth and suggest that under any circumstances, we would not support a NATO nation.
What I see is that people, when confronted with the facts – if they’re part of Donald Trump’s cult, then they’ll say, ‘Yes, but I’m still going to support him.’ So maybe his support gets stronger with what he has, but it doesn’t move out horizontally, and that’s the important issue. We’ve got to make sure that his attractiveness doesn’t move out to independents and Democrats, and that young Democrats and Black Democrats and other Democrats recognize the direction this country has gone in the last four years.
Shifting to policy, you were the first, and still one of only two, New Jersey members of Congress to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. What has the reaction been to that, and to the votes you’ve taken, back at home in your district?
Well, there are some people who are very unhappy. They misunderstand who I am and what I stand for, because I support Israel’s right to exist. I support Israel’s right to be safe and secure as a nation, and to prosper. I support the Palestinian people having that same right – their own nation, safety, security, prosperity and equality. What happened on October 7th is the worst tragedy I’ve ever seen in my lifetime, and Israel had a right to defend itself. We’ve got to ask ourselves, moving from that point on, what we feel about what we’ve seen. We must always remember that the hostages are our number one priority, getting them out and getting them back.
But you can’t devastate a whole population. You can’t crumble a whole infrastructure, from hospitals to schools to apartments to stores to bakeries, whatever communities need to be healthy. And that’s what I see [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu doing. I don’t support his right-wing, ultra-conservative, mean-spirited leadership. I think he’s trying to hold on to power so he doesn’t have to go through court proceedings to deal with the allegations of corruption against him. The collateral damage that exists because of that notion on his part is insane. And the United States of America has got to figure out a way to say, ‘You’ve gone overboard. You’ve displaced 1.7 million Palestinians. You tell them to move to a certain safe and secure place, and then you go and fricking bomb it.’ We’re not going to just continue to support Israel and give them the means to purchase weapons, which are probably made here, to continue to do that.
If I were being asked to support the Iron Dome, which is Israel’s most important defense mechanism, I’ve been all in and I would stay all in. But to give Israel unconditional money right now, to use in this war against innocent Palestinians – children, elderly, families? I have a constituent I’ve talked to. One night I talked to him, he had lost 17 members of his family in one day. Two weeks later, I saw him, and he had lost two more. One of his relatives that was killed was a father of 11. So what’s happening with the mother and those 11 children?
There’s this supplemental bill that just passed the Senate for Ukraine and Israel and humanitarian aid. If that comes up for a vote in the House, do you think you’ll support it?
I’m going to be completely honest with you: I am so concerned about the fate of Ukraine that I will give it lots of thought and I will give it lots of sleepless nights. I cannot tell you, right now, what I would do with that piece of legislation. That’s a really tough bill for me, but I will pray on it, as I do on everything else, and try to do what I think is the right thing.
Have you had conversations with the Biden administration, or with your fellow members, trying to shift their stance on this? Because it sounds like there’s some distance between you and a lot of your colleagues in the House Democratic caucus and the White House.
I think my position is very well-known. I was one of the first people to even pen a letter to the administration; I was one of the first members to do an op-ed on it. Of course I talk to my colleagues, and I have spoken to some folks that are related to the Biden administration. It is not that people don’t know where I stand. And I try to respect where other people stand. But in my heart of hearts, I do not believe that there will be a good ending to this if we just keep sending them resources.
Not only do we need a ceasefire and a negotiation to get the hostages, we have to have a plan to rebuild Palestine. Netanyahu already has said that he doesn’t believe in a two-state solution. Well, dammit, we do! So we’ve got to start believing that what he says is his belief, and act accordingly. I think the president has been overly fair to Netanyahu. I personally feel like he needs to be tougher with him.
Another policy debate that’s lighting up Congress right now is the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction, and raising the SALT deduction cap. I’m curious where you stand on that, because on one hand you’re from New Jersey, which really likes the SALT deduction; on the other hand, some progressives have criticized it as doing too much for wealthy residents and not enough for poor residents.
In New Jersey, it’s not about just doing things for the wealthy, because [the bill under discussion] is for families making $500,000 or less. New Jersey is a very expensive state to live in. I support a release of the cap on SALT; however, I think what is presented is a short-term response to a long-term problem. We need to get a handle on property taxes in New Jersey. New Jersey is a very generous state – we send more than we get from the federal government. This is another short-term bill that I have to think very seriously about, because it will bring relief, but only for one year. And for some folks who have already filed their taxes, it’s going to require them to jump through some hoops and do some adjusting to what they’ve presented. I think that this short-term bill is emblematic of a failure to govern by the House of Representatives: failure to see what this country needs, failure to project what the people need and want. It’s just a further illustration of their ineptness. [Hours after this interview was conducted, the House voted down a procedural motion that would have allowed for consideration of the SALT relief bill; Watson Coleman and most other Democrats voted against the motion.]
Are you optimistic that there can be some kind of longer-term solution that passes in this Congress?
No. I’m not optimistic about very much of anything happening in this House of Representatives. It has conservative and moderate Republicans scared to death to do what, in their heart, they’d like to do, and two dozen MAGA nuts, including the Speaker, who are going to do whatever the former president wants. Since I consider Trump the MAGA-nuttiest of all of them, and the evilest of all of them, I don’t have a lot of optimism about what we’re going to experience here, which is another illustration of why I think that this upcoming election is a do-or-die election.
We talked a few months ago about government funding, right before the first almost-shutdown. There have been three almost-shutdowns since then. Do you feel like Congress is finally on the right track now? I know that there’s a deal floating around –
I think there are toplines that have been agreed to, but the importance of each one of those categories – it’s what’s within them. And so we’ve got to be very concerned about poison pills that would make it impossible for us to support it. We don’t know anything right now. I know that we’ve got a March 1 deadline, and then a March 8 deadline – we’ve got to come to some agreement. I hope it’s not a continuing resolution that kicks the can down the road. America deserves better. Dammit, we deserve better.
There’s not going to be much time to get that through, right? Because there’s a recess, and then suddenly you’re thrust into it.
I hope that during the recess, those who think that they’re in charge, or should be in charge, are working. We’ll be working in our districts. But we hope that they’ll be working here in D.C. and forging a decent response to our needs.
You’re coming to the end of your first decade in Congress. What are your hopes for the future? What are you hoping to accomplish either in this Congress, or maybe a Congress where your party’s in control?
I look forward to the next Congress, because I just don’t think that we’re going to get at the things that I think are really important in this Congress. Whether it’s climate change, or drug policy reform, or access to better housing, or expanding accessible and affordable prescriptions. I really want to also spend a lot more of my time looking at the causes of poverty, and having research and discussions on what it takes to move people out of poverty. I believe that in the United States of America, which is the richest nation in the world, no one should have to live below a certain floor. And that floor should provide you the capacity to shelter yourself, feed yourself, clothe yourself, and get yourself to work. I have a couple of bills to flesh that out: guaranteed income, guaranteed jobs, profit sharing, expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, things of that nature, and decriminalizing substance abuse. I want to spend time working on those. But then I have other bills – important bills for the environment, like making sure that poorer communities that are laden with so much concrete get trees, so that we can cool them down, and cooling stations.
I’ve always felt that my responsibility was, as an elected official, to be guided by ‘To whom much is given, much is required.’ I think that that should be who we are in America. We have a responsibility to take that which we’ve been given, and be able to share it on behalf of others who are less fortunate.