Washington was overrun this week with the kind of tension and chaos that hasn’t been seen since last fall’s Speaker battle – and this time, the drama originated from well outside the Capitol’s halls. Ever since his troubled debate performance last month, President Joe Biden has faced increasing worries about his ability to win re-election, and congressional Democrats had to field tough questions this week about whether they believe he’s fit for office.
Beyond that, though, there were still plenty of normal D.C. goings-on, including the signing of a firefighter grant bill, debates over voter ID requirements and household appliance energy standards, and more. Here’s some of what New Jersey’s 13 members of Congress did this week.
Mikie drop
Not counting Senator Bob Menendez, whose fate in his federal corruption trial is currently under a jury’s deliberation, New Jersey has nine congressional Democrats who were in Washington this week to discuss their thoughts on Biden. They had very different answers about what should be done.
Most dramatically, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) said on Tuesday that she believes Biden should step down as the Democratic nominee and pass the torch onto a younger candidate. At the time, she was the seventh Democrat to publicly say Biden needs to step aside; since then, another dozen have said the same thing.
“Because I know President Biden cares deeply about the future of our country, I am asking that he declare that he won’t run for reelection and will help lead us through a process toward a new nominee,” Sherrill said in a statement. “I realize this is hard, but we have done hard things in pursuit of democracy since the founding of this nation. It is time to do so again.”
Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown), meanwhile, didn’t go quite so far, but he did say he has concerns about Biden remaining the nominee and that Democrats should seriously consider different paths forward.
“The question is, can Biden win, and is there somebody that can potentially be stronger? That’s what I’m digging in on right now and trying to think through,” Kim said. “I don’t think it’s a problem for us to think through this and be absolutely thorough in terms of what this last stretch of the campaign could look like… There’s enough time that if there needs to be a switch, I think that could be done.”
Four other New Jersey Democrats – Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing), Donald Norcross (D-Camden), Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson), and Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City) – have all said they continue to have faith in Biden.
“He has done more for working families than any other president since I’ve been on this earth,” Norcross said. “I don’t think there’s anybody that is better suited to lead this country, to help working men and women, than Joe Biden.”
And Senator Cory Booker, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch), and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Wyckoff) landed somewhere in between, saying that beating Trump is their most important concern or leaving the decision up to Biden. (Booker declined to say much to reporters about the whole affair yesterday, but he did give them ice-cold water bottles in the Washington heat, so there’s that.)
Grants on fire
Regardless of Democrats’ concerns, Joe Biden remains the president, which means he can still do presidential things like sign bills into law – and he did just that this week on a fire grant reauthorization bill led by New Jersey Reps. Pascrell and Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield).
The Fire Grants and Safety Act, which reauthorizes several important federal firefighter grant programs, was not a particularly controversial piece of legislation, passing both chambers of Congress by overwhelming bipartisan margins. But it’s still notable that in the midst of a chaotic congressional session, Kean and Pascrell were able to get it done.
“As a former volunteer firefighter and EMT, I know that we cannot play political games with the needs of our first responders,” Kean said in a statement. “We did not let DC gridlock slow us down. The Fire Grants and Safety Act passed the House with a 92% vote and with 88% in the Senate. We worked across the aisle and found common ground. We delivered big results that will change lives for the better.”
Inforeign affairs
Rep. Chris Smith (R-Manchester)’s bill to reauthorize the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, meanwhile, began its own journey through Congress this week, passing the House Foreign Affairs Committee on a unanimous vote.
“USCIRF in recent years has been more effective than at any point in its history and is one of the most effective tools we have for defending religious freedom,” Smith said of his bill, which would reauthorize the commission through 2026. “Now more than ever its success must continue.”
Smith, the chairman of a Foreign Affairs subcommittee on global human rights, also hosted a hearing this week on the State Department’s 2024 Trafficking In Persons Report, at which he pushed for stricter scrutiny of certain countries like Vietnam.
“The TIP Report is the gold standard for cataloging countries’ records and using the information to push them to end the scourge of trafficking,” Smith said. “Sadly, time and time again information from civil society organizations is not fully considered because of a desire for political gain, especially for Southeast Asian countries.”
Gateway dug
On Monday, shortly before heading back to Washington for the week’s session, a bevy of New York and New Jersey politicians – among them Gov. Phil Murphy, Senator Booker, and Rep. Menendez – gathered in Manhattan to celebrate the $12 billion in federal funding that will be used to build the Hudson River Tunnel, the core piece of the Gateway Program.
“Today is a day of making investments, the biggest investment of taxpayers in a transportation project ever,” Booker said. “This is a day of coming back to who we say we are: a nation that invests in itself so we can grow our nation, grow our economy, and continue to lead the world.”
Senator Menendez – just a few miles away at the time, in a federal courthouse – said in a statement that he, too, was thrilled to see the Gateway Project finally up and running, with the prospect of much improved rail connections between New York and New Jersey on the horizon.
“The fight to get to this point has not been easy,” Menendez said. “The Trump administration held the Gateway Project up for years, but I battled restlessly to keep it alive so we could be here today. More than a decade ago I stood up and said I wouldn’t rest until this project got done. Today, I deliver on that promise with billions of dollars of federal assistance. I am proud to have fought for this moment and look forward to this historic project getting underway.”
Stop! Refrigerate and listen
On Tuesday, the House descended into an hour and a half of debate on two bills that aim to kill certain energy efficiency standards for dishwashers and refrigerators – much to the dismay of Rep. Pallone, the ranking Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee and a top congressional voice on consumer protection issues. Pallone excoriated the two bills during the House debate, calling them redundant and unhelpful.
“We’re here now to debate H.R. 7637, the Refrigerator Freedom Act – that’s right, Republicans are fighting to give refrigerators freedom,” Pallone quipped on the House floor. “Now imagine that. You don’t hear them fighting for the same thing for American women… Talk about misplaced priorities. I can’t imagine any more misplaced priority than this bill.”
Pallone argued that the energy standards targeted by the two bills are popular and cost-efficient, and nixing them is in no one’s best interest. What’s more, he said, the House already passed a broader bill – the Hands Off Our Home Appliances (HOOHA) Act – in May that does much the same thing, making this week’s bills pointless.
“[This bill] doesn’t need to be brought up today, because House Republicans already passed it two months ago as part of a larger bill,” Pallone said. “In other words, today’s debate is a waste of our time. It’s clearly being brought up because Republicans simply don’t have any other bills to the floor, and they’re fresh out of ideas that can meet the approval of the extreme elements in their party.”
Failure to launch
While the House was able to pass its refrigerator and dishwasher legislation, several other GOP-led bills came notably short. An appropriations bill to fund the legislative branch, a resolution to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in inherent contempt of Congress, and a veto override effort related to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s crypto policies all failed to pass despite Republicans controlling the House.
New Jersey’s three Republican congressmen voted in favor of all three; Rep. Smith said that the inherent contempt resolution, which would have fined Garland for his failure to comply with a congressional subpoena related to President Joe Biden’s special counsel interview, had his strong support.
“Attorney General Garland’s continued refusal to hand over the audio tapes of Special Counsel Hur’s interview with President Biden is nothing less than a complete coverup,” Smith said. “Because of Garland’s ongoing defiance of the law, I voted today to hold him in inherent contempt of Congress – which includes a significant $10,000 per day fine – until he complies with his congressional subpoena by turning over the audio recordings.”
The Senate didn’t fare too much better. The only piece of legislation that came up in the Senate this week was a bill supporting abortion rights and pushing for the reinstatement of Roe v. Wade – and it failed to even come up for a debate thanks to opposition from Republican senators.
Other Garden State plots
• One other bill the House did successfully pass, though, was the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (or SAVE) Act, which would require individuals to present proof of U.S. citizenship in order to register to vote. (Noncitizen voting, to be clear, is already illegal in federal elections.) New Jersey’s representatives split on party lines, with Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed.
“Noncitizen voting makes our elections vulnerable to foreign interference and violates the constitutional principle that voting is a right reserved for American citizens,” Rep. Smith said. “To ensure that Americans can have confidence in our election process and results, we must take additional steps to protect this sacred right and ensure that only United States citizens are able to vote in our elections.”
• At a meeting of the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday, Rep. Gottheimer questioned Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on three rather disparate topics: childcare costs, sanctions on Iran, and state-level anti-money laundering laws.
“In my home state of New Jersey, the average family pays more than $440 a week in childcare costs,” Gottheimer said. “What forms of tax relief are available for hardworking families struggling with these high costs, and what is the Biden administration doing to combat the effects of these rising costs?”
“Well, we certainly have proposed extending the Child Tax Credit, which was immensely helpful,” Yellen responded. “We’re supportive of the legislation that has gone through the House, and would urge action in the Senate, that would extend the Child Tax Credit along with other provisions.”
• Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents conducted a raid in Princeton on Wednesday to arrest undocumented workers, per the Daily Princetonian, prompting a harsh rebuke from the town’s congresswoman, Rep. Watson Coleman.
“I am horrified to learn of the ICE raids carried out in Princeton today, by agents who did not identify themselves, drove into communities, and stopped Hispanic/Latinx residents seemingly at random to interrogate them and demand documentation,” Watson Coleman said. “This kind of conduct has absolutely no place in our community or our country. I am working to get more information from federal agencies involved in order to fully understand what occurred.”