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

This was the week that New Jersey shut Congress down.

In the Senate, Senator Cory Booker delivered a 25-hour anti-Trump address without stopping – even to use the bathroom – waylaying Senate business for a day and smashing the record for longest Senate speech, a record that had been held for nearly 70 years by the segregationist Storm Thurmond. Over in the House, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) joined a breakaway group of Republicans in supporting an effort to allow proxy House voting for new parents, an effort that led to GOP leaders to cancel all remaining votes for the week.

Despite all of this, plenty of other things happened this week too, including tariffs, votes on weapons for Israel, and a proposal to drug test Elon Musk. Here’s some of what New Jersey’s members of Congress did in Washington this week.

Andy Kim begins planning for 26-hour speech on Lego Star Wars

When Senator Booker took the the Senate floor at 7 p.m. on Monday night, some people knew that he intended to make a rather lengthy speech in protest of the policies of President Donald Trump’s administration. Few were aware, though, of just how far he intended to go.

Behind the scenes, Booker had been preparing for months – both by gathering vast reams of material to make the case against Trump and by training his body and voice to withstand the extraordinary exertion of a multi-day speech. (Booker told reporters afterwards that he had stopped eating and drinking long before the address began to obviate the need for bathroom trips; when he began speaking, he hadn’t eaten anything in three days.)

“These are not normal times in our nation,” he said at the beginning of his speech. “And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate. The threats to the American people and American democracy are grave and urgent and we all must do more to stand against them.”

The speech was not technically a filibuster, since it wasn’t in response to any specific Senate bill and didn’t even come with any particular policy ask. But by hammering home his anti-Trump message for so long – he smashed Thurmond’s record at the 24 hour, 19 minute mark – Booker drew massive attention to the Democratic cause, and gave Democrats looking for a fighter against Trump a message to latch onto.

“My voice is inadequate, my efforts today are inadequate, to stop what they’re trying to do. But we the people are powerful. We are strong,” Booker said after around 20 hours. “God Bless America, we need you now. God Bless America – if you love her, if you love your neighbor, if you love this country, show your love. Stop them from doing what they’re trying to do.”

A proxy on your House

In the midst of Booker’s extemporizing, the House was engaged in a fierce debate over proxy voting that left the entire chamber paralyzed for the rest of the week – in part because of Rep. Van Drew.

The short version of the drama is that Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida) got 218 signatures on a discharge petition, a workaround that lets a majority of the House circumvent leadership and put bills directly on the floor, that would allow brand-new parents to designate a proxy to vote for them in the House for 12 weeks. The petition was strongly opposed by House Speaker Mike Johnson, so much so that he slipped a provision into an unrelated procedural vote that would have nullified Luna’s proposal entirely.

But Luna cobbled together a coalition of nine Republicans – among them Van Drew, who was also a signatory of her discharge petition – to join with every House Democrat in sinking the vote and keeping proxy voting alive.

“We don’t have hundreds of pregnant women” in Congress, Van Drew said in explaining his vote. “Now and then, a woman is pregnant and then gives birth, and wants to spend a little special time with their newborn baby – there’s nothing wrong with that. And she still needs to participate. It’s the 21st century.”

Johnson reacted to the vote’s failure by cancelling all remaining House votes for the week, and the fight over proxy voting looks likely to spill over into next week, too. His decision, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing) argued, was a major overreaction that betrays the troubles Republicans are having in governing the country.

“Republican leadership tried to block a Republican-led measure that would allow Congresswomen who are new moms to cast their votes by proxy (which Mike Johnson himself did numerous times during Covid),” Watson Coleman said on social media. “They failed, and so they sent everyone home for the week. Utter incompetence.”

Tariffed and feathered

Neither Booker nor the proxy vote were able to remain at the top of the news for long, though, as Trump took to the Rose Garden on Wednesday and announced a sweeping new set of global tariffs that he marketed as “Liberation Day.”

The reaction from New Jersey Republicans has been largely positive. Rep. Chris Smith (R-Manchester) attended Trump’s ceremony, met with Vice President JD Vance, and lauded Trump’s “bold strategy to rectify unfair trade tariffs imposed on us, the U.S.”; Rep. Van Drew, meanwhile, told Newsmax that he believes the tariffs will lead to a “golden age in America, where America again resumes its place as the leader, the head of the pack, the one driving the train.”

But Democrats have been massively critical of the tariffs, and so far the stock market seems to agree with them. There’s been legislation under discussion in Congress to undo some tariffs or limit the president’s authority to put new ones in place; Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly) put forward one such bill earlier this week, the Reclaiming Congressional Trade Authority Act, that would require presidents to go through Congress when they seek to put tariffs in place for national security reasons.

“Congress has the constitutional authority to regulate foreign trade,” Gottheimer said at a press conference on Monday. “So, if the President wants to impose sweeping tariffs that will impact millions of hardworking families and small businesses, he better have a good justification for doing it. And I’ll fight tooth and nail to ensure hardworking families don’t pay the price for the President’s reckless decisions.”

Federal judge officially declares New Jersey > Louisiana

This week, a federal judge ruled that Mahmoud Khalil’s bid for freedom from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody would proceed in New Jersey, where he was held at the time that his lawyer filed for his release, rather than in Louisiana.

That adds a New Jersey angle to the most prominent of the Trump administration’s efforts to deport pro-Palestine students, but Khalil himself was a Columbia University graduate student. There don’t seem to have been any New Jersey college students directly and publicly targeted by the Trump administration yet, though Rep. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City) did tell the New Jersey Globe that his office is working with a local student concerned about their status.

“We’re alarmed by what’s happening across the country with respect to students,” Menendez said. “People need to know what’s happening. Trump and Republicans sell this narrative of, ‘This is public safety.’ And when you start to look at a lot of these cases, it is not about public safety. They are either trying to silence people, or they are trying to remove people to hit certain quotas.”

Rep. Van Drew, meanwhile, said that he’s broadly supportive of Trump’s deportation efforts and indicated that he hopes ICE investigates Rutgers, where pro-Palestinian protesters set up encampments last year.

“Certainly, my alma mater, Rutgers University – they probably oughta take a good look there, at some of the people who are there,” Van Drew said. “Certainly, it is your right to protest and rally. It is your right to disagree if it’s done peacefully, if it’s not done in a terroristic way. But some of the people that the Trump administration has removed are really bad eggs. They’re bad people.”

First they drug tested billionaire special government employees, and I said nothing, for I was not a billionaire special government employee

Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) wants to drug test Elon Musk.

That’s the long and short of the congresswoman’s new bill, which would require drug testing for special government employees like Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) crew, much like the rest of the federal workforce has to go through. Sherrill specifically cited past reports of Musk using drugs like LSD, cocaine, and ketamine as the impetus for her bill.

“Those with access to sensitive information must be thoroughly vetted, clear-eyed, and exercise good judgment,” Sherrill said. “Elon Musk and his DOGE employees should be held to the same standard as other executive branch employees, whether that’s for conflicts of interest or passing a drug test to maintain employment or a security clearance.”

Does the bill stand a chance of becoming law while Republicans control government – i.e., while Musk has influence? Almost certainly not. But as Sherrill continues looking for ways to jab at Musk and make the case against his role in government, her drug test bill is one way to draw attention to her cause.

Bernie + Andy

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) forced votes this week on two resolutions that would block $8.8 billion in weapons sales to Israel. Only 15 senators voted for the resolutions – and one of them was Senator Andy Kim.

In a detailed statement, Kim explained that he still wants to support the Israeli people, quash Hamas, and ensure the safe return of New Jersey native Edan Alexander, but he does not believe the bombs covered by the resolutions should be put in the hands of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I voted for these Joint Resolutions because while I support providing tools critical for Israel’s defense, I do not believe that these systems, which include those that can level entire city blocks and that have been used in incidents with disproportionate civilian casualties, achieve the primary objectives I’ve outlined,” Kim said. “In fact, their use will make it harder.”

Senator Booker voted against both resolutions, just as he did when Sanders forced votes on three similar measures last year.

Other Garden State plots

• After a Jersey City native and college student named Sarah Katz died in 2022 after drinking a Panera Charged Lemonade, seemingly without realizing that its high caffeine level could be dangerous for her heart condition, Rep. Menendez has introduced the Sarah Katz Caffeine Safety Act to improve labeling on caffeinated products.

“We all agree that if we take action, we can prevent deaths like this from happening in the future,” Menendez said. “It’s simple: we want every consumer to know what they’re drinking and what it does. These changes will ensure that everyone, no matter how old or how young, can walk into a store or order off a menu and know with confidence how much caffeine is in their drink. We believe this transparency will save lives.”

• After the Senate and House each passed different versions of a budget resolution earlier this year, beginning a process that will eventually lead to a tax- and spending-focused reconciliation bill, the Senate is now taking up a rejiggered version, teeing up a “vote-a-rama” tonight. Democrats remain vociferously opposed, saying that the spending cuts required under the bill would lead to devastation for Medicaid and other programs.

“This is a moment to show the two million New Jerseyans on Medicaid, the nearly 80 million Americans on Medicaid, and every other American across this country that we choose their wellbeing over the wealth and power of those who already have plenty,” Senator Kim said in floor remarks. “Let’s reject this budget resolution and do the right thing for them.”

• Rep. Van Drew chaired a meeting of his House Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight this week focused on “waste, fraud, and abuse” at the FBI during Joe Biden’s presidency.

“This hearing is more than oversight,” Van Drew said in his opening remarks. “This is about restoring trust. This is about standing up for every American who believes that government should protect them, not target them. Let me be clear: the FBI should be a shield for the American people. Instead, under the Biden-Harris administration, it became a sword to use against them.”