This was a big week in Congress: the GOP’s flagship Big Beautiful Bill hit some big new roadblocks in the Senate, though Senate leaders are still barreling ahead with it; Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark) officially pled not guilty to federal felony charges; and a controversial nominee for a New Jersey-based federal appeals court seat faced a grilling in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
It all came together as an enormous heat wave gripped both D.C. and New Jersey; here’s some of what New Jersey’s members of Congress did in Washington this week.
Arraigning on my parade
On Wednesday, Rep. McIver was arraigned on federal felony assault charges related to last month’s scuffle at the Delaney Hall immigrant detention facility; as expected, she pleaded not guilty. A trial is expected on November 10 – which, it’s worth noting, is long after interim U.S. Attorney Alina Habba, who has aggressively pursued the case against McIver, is supposed to leave office.
Both outside the courthouse in Newark and later that same day in Washington D.C., McIver projected defiance against the charges, saying they were an attempt by the Trump administration to intimidate Democrats who try to conduct oversight of its immigration policies.
“We’re excited about going to trial, because the facts are on our side,” McIver said. “We are going to fight this case through, and no matter what headline the DOJ puts out, it does not matter, because the facts are in my corner.”
And even as McIver comes under increasing fire from Republicans – a new motion to censure the congresswoman and remove her from the Homeland Security Committee was introduced this week – most of her fellow Democrats are standing firmly with her. An event supporting McIver in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall drew more than 60 House Democrats, among them Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing), Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City), Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch), and Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon).
“I am proud to be surrounded by members of our Democratic caucus who are here in absolute solidarity with LaMonica McIver,” said House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Massachusetts), the House’s #2 Democrat. “We stand here today, shoulder to shoulder, to show our support, and to make sure that our message is loud and clear: we will not be intimidated.”
A Man Called Bove
Top Justice Department official Emil Bove has only loose ties to New Jersey, with his official nomination paperwork even calling him “Emil J. Bove III of Pennsylvania.” Nevertheless, he’s President Donald Trump’s pick for a New Jersey-based seat on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, a nomination that came before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a confirmation hearing on Wednesday.
Democrats, though, didn’t focus very much on Bove’s weak connections to the state he’s meant to serve. Instead, they honed in on his myriad past controversies: his directive that prosecutors drop charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, his conduct during his time in the Southern District of New York, and a recent allegation from a whistleblower that he had instructed Justice Department employees to consider telling judges “fuck you” if they tried to stop Trump’s deportation agenda.
“Our job as a committee is not to simply rubber-stamp nominees because a president nominated them,” Booker said in opening remarks at the hearing. “Mr. Bove should be before us in an oversight hearing on the unlawful acts of the Department of Justice… He should not be before us for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench.”
Booker and Senator Andy Kim have both refused to sign off on Bove’s nomination, though Republicans have said they don’t intend to let the two New Jersey senators get a veto. The seat was held until 2023 by Obama appointee Joseph Greenaway; President Joe Biden’s nominee to succeed him, Adeel Mangi, failed to get through the Democratic-controlled Senate, giving Trump the ability to name his successor instead.
“I hope that we can be able to stop this nomination, because [Bove] has no right being a federal judge,” said Kim, who was denied the ability to make his case before the Judiciary Committee itself. “He is somebody whose only qualification, really, is loyalty to President Trump.”
Bove, for his part, has categorically denied any wrongdoing, though he evaded or “did not recall” the answers to a variety of questions Democrats asked him. That may be enough for Republicans to clear his nomination, though Booker said he’ll work to convince a critical handful of his GOP colleagues that Bove is an unfit and dangerous nominee.
“I am someone who tries to stand up for what I believe is right,” Bove said. “I’m not afraid to make difficult decisions. I understand that some of those decisions have generated controversy.… But I want to be clear about one thing up front: there is a wildly inaccurate caricature of me in the mainstream media. I am not anybody’s henchman. I’m not an enforcer.”
One Big Beautiful Boondoggle
The One Big Beautiful Bill, congressional Republicans’ enormous legislative package relating to tax policies, Medicaid, and much more, has had a challenging week in the Senate after passing the House last month.
Key to Senate Republicans’ problems: the Senate parliamentarian, who is responsible for determining which provisions of the bill can be passed via reconciliation, a process that allows bills to clear the Senate with only a simple majority and avoid a filibuster. The parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, has issued rulings against a number of key parts of the bill, prompting ire from Republicans like Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis).
“Respecting the rules matters, but so does respecting the voters. They didn’t give an unelected staffer the power to decide what is in the budget – that’s the job of Congress,” Van Drew said on social media. “It doesn’t have to be this way. The Republicans senators are not required to adhere to anything she says.”
Republicans are still forging ahead in an effort to pass the bill before July 4, and the Senate is expected to begin voting on it sometime this weekend. But don’t expect yes votes from either of New Jersey’s senators, who like all of their fellow Democrats have blasted the bill as cruel and disastrous.
“We need to make sure we’re doing everything we can to be able to stop this,” Senator Kim said. “This is not over yet – I am going to continue to fight.”
Summer SALT
If the bill does indeed pass the Senate, then it will have to head back to the House, where a new host of problems may crop up with convincing House members who supported their own version of the bill to abide by whatever changes the Senate has made.
One recurrent sticking point is raising the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction cap, a key issue for Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield). Senate Republicans have indicated far less interest than their House counterparts in raising the cap, and while negotiations have been ongoing, Kean has said fairly definitively that he wants the House-passed language (which hikes the cap from $10,000 to $40,000) to remain untouched.
“Restoring SALT is not about New Jersey alone,” Kean said. “It is about fixing a flaw in the federal tax code that stifles growth, undermines local control, and violates the conservative belief in fair, limited taxation. $40k is the right compromise. No SALT, no deal.”
Rep. Van Drew, meanwhile, has taken issue with the Senate’s Medicaid provisions, which are harsher than the ones passed by the House. Those negotiations, too, are still in flux, but Van Drew has expressed a willingness to vote against the bill if he thinks its Medicaid cuts go too far – a stance he defended on political reasons as well as policy ones.
“If you care about politics at all, and you want to maintain the majority, how the heck are you going to maintain the majority if you do something like that?” Van Drew said on Wednesday. “The more moderate, the more conservative you are, you tend to be more of a working person these days. We’re not the rich elitists! So let’s take care of our people.”
Just in time for summer in D.C.
After two-and-a-half months out of Washington following a near-fatal gallbladder infection, Rep. Donald Norcross (D-Camden) at last returned to Congress full-time this week, and he spoke with the New Jersey Globe about his brush with death and his new perspective on American health care policies.
“I never once had to worry about making sure that I had access to what is arguably the best health care in the world,” Norcross said. “And at the same time, I’m watching on TV news reports about how we are about to rip health care away from 14 million Americans who, through no fault of their own, are not going to have the access that I did.”
Norcross did attend one vote during his absence from Congress: the vote on the One Big Beautiful Bill, which passed 215-214 despite Norcross trekking to D.C. (“they packed me up in the Tahoe and drove me down,” he said) to vote against it. And even now that he’s back full-time, he said that the rehabilitation process isn’t over yet.
“I’d like to say I’ll be at full throttle, but obviously I’m still in recovery,” he said. “But it’s incredibly important that I get back, especially in light of what’s coming up in the next couple of weeks.”
Strike one
The United States bombed Iranian nuclear sites last weekend, prompting a response largely divided on party lines: Republicans praised Trump for his decisiveness and his unwillingness to allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon; Democrats criticized him for failing to consult with Congress and risking the possibility of prolonged U.S. involvement. (A tenuous ceasefire is in place following the attacks, which reportedly did not in fact destroy Iran’s nuclear sites; the CIA reports the strike did significant damage.)
One Democrat, though, was willing to unequivocally praise the operation: Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly, a staunchly pro-Israel Democrat who said in a statement that Trump’s action was “critical and decisive,” though he didn’t mention the president by name.
“The destruction of Iran’s nuclear program is essential to ultimate peace in the Middle East,” Gottheimer said. “This is not a Democratic or Republican issue – dealing with the Iranian threat is central to America’s national security. The world is safer because of the actions of our brave service members.”
On Friday, the Senate voted on Senator Tim Kaine (D-Virginia)’s resolution to require congressional approval of any future strikes on Iran under the War Powers Act. Senate Republicans mobilized against the resolution to kill it, but Senators Kim and Booker both joined the vast majority of the Democratic caucus in supporting it.
“The American people deserve to know under what conditions Trump would consider additional strikes and to have a say in whether our country goes to war,” Kim said. “By rejecting this resolution, my colleagues are abdicating our responsibility to give voice to Americans, including the military families who will inevitably be put in harm’s way.”
Golden hour
More than eighty years ago, John Wardell, a native of Point Pleasant, New Jersey, was drafted into the Army and signed up to join the Army Rangers, where he earned a Purple Heart serving in World War II.
This week, with Wardell’s 100th birthday a month away, he was honored with a Congressional Gold Medal at a ceremony in the U.S. Capitol. Wardell’s service, Rep. Chris Smith (R-Manchester) said, should never be forgotten.
“John Wardell and his fellow Army Rangers fought with unmatched courage and tenacity, under the most difficult conditions, met the enemy head on overcoming ferocious defenses while leading the invasion of Europe to ultimately secure victory and peace,” Smith said. “We are forever grateful to these heroes and their extended family members for their sacrifice and service to our nation.”
I’d like to see him wriggle his way out of THIS jam!
You’d be forgiven for missing it, but the House actually voted on whether or not to impeach the president this week – sort of.
Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), who made headlines for repeatedly interrupting Trump’s joint session address in March, put forward a resolution to impeach Trump on Tuesday, alleging that his strike on Iran constituted “high crimes and misdemeanors.” But most Democrats, not eager to revisit the impeachment sagas of the first Trump administration, had no appetite for Green’s effort, and nearly two-thirds of the caucus voted with Republicans to table it.
In the New Jersey delegation, Reps. McIver, Menendez, Watson Coleman, and Norcross voted against the motion to table (in effect supporting the impeachment effort). Everyone else in the delegation, from both parties, supported killing the resolution except for Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair), who wasn’t there for the vote.
Other Garden State plots
• With House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) continuing to delay the law-mandated installation of a plaque in the U.S. Capitol honoring the Capitol Police who served on January 6, New Jersey’s nine House Democrats joined most of their Democratic colleagues in putting up replicas of the plaque outside their own office doors.
“Officer Brian Sicknick, who grew up in Middlesex County, died after being attacked while defending this institution,” Rep. Pallone said. “The refusal to hang this plaque as required by law, combined with the pardons of his assailants, is a stunning insult to his sacrifice and to law enforcement officers everywhere.”
• The House passed its first appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2026 this week, funding military construction and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Every present New Jersey Democrat voted against the bill, but Rep. Gottheimer still applauded the bill for including three of his amendments related to placing resident advocates in veterans homes, providing kosher meals, and combating veteran suicide.
“In my home state of New Jersey, 190 veterans tragically lost their lives due to the COVID outbreak at the veterans homes in Paramus and Menlo Park,” Gottheimer said. “This tragedy was preventable and unacceptable. My amendments will help ensure catastrophes like that don’t happen again, while also helping to prevent veteran suicide and to ensure no veteran has to choose between their religion and their health.”
• The Supreme Court ruled against New Jersey on Friday in a case revolving around a Trump administration executive order targeting birthright citizenship, though the actual legal dispute instead focused on whether District Court judges can issue nationwide injunctions. The decision in the case, which had been argued before the Court by New Jersey Solicitor General Jeremy Feigenbaum, drew negative reactions from many New Jersey Democrats.
“This is a shameful abdication of responsibility by the majority on the Court,” Rep. Watson Coleman said. “To issue this ruling on nationwide injunctions without considering the merits of the underlying birthright citizenship order thrusts millions of Americans into uncertainty and chaos.”