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

The mood in Washington turned grim on Wednesday after news broke that the prominent conservative activist Charlie Kirk had been shot and killed, the latest in an increasingly alarming string of attacks against political figures on both sides. The next day marked the 24th anniversary of September 11, 2001, always a somber milestone – especially in New Jersey, which was hit harder by 9/11 than nearly any other state.

Back on the Hill, the House passed its version of the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and members of both parties debated what to do about expiring Obamacare subsidies; the wife of disgraced ex-senator Bob Menendez, meanwhile, landed a four-and-a-half-year prison sentence. Here’s some of what New Jersey’s members of Congress did in Washington this week.

Pick a tinny, any tinny

Every year since Republicans retook control of the House in 2022, wrangling over the NDAA has proceeded in much the same way. A bipartisan bill passes out of the House Armed Services Committee; conservatives then load that bill with culture-war amendments, costing it the support of Democrats; finally, the Senate enters the picture and reworks the bill back into something that can pass with bipartisan support.

We’re now on Step 2 of that process for the 2026 NDAA: on Wednesday, the House passed its version of the bill on a mostly party-line 231-196 vote after amendments targeting transgender servicemembers, pride flags, and electric vehicles were added at the last minute. Seven New Jersey Democrats opposed the bill; Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly) was the only one to support it, and Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) was not present.

Sherrill, though, got a noteworthy amendment added to the bill aimed at protecting Picatinny Arsenal, a major military installation in her district. The Defense Department has made plans to potentially transfer a huge number of jobs and dollars away from the arsenal, but Sherrill’s amendment would require a study and substantial waiting period before many of those changes could occur.

“With today’s action, Congress is making clear that the Army cannot quietly move ammunition research and development funding elsewhere without first reporting on the impacts and giving us the chance to evaluate them,” Sherrill said in a statement the day the NDAA passed.

Sherrill and Rep. Donald Norcross (D-Camden) also helped shape the bill on the Armed Services Committee itself, with Norcross highlighting wins like funding for research & development at Rowan University and for aircraft that fly out of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) said the bill additionally authorizes $61 million for a new maintenance hangar in Egg Harbor Township.

One other New Jersey-related amendment from Rep. Chris Smith (R-Manchester), however, failed to make it in; Smith’s effort to further study offshore wind’s impacts on radar capabilities was shot down by a small cohort of his fellow Republicans.

ACA believe it

While a potential government shutdown starting on October 1 may be the most pressing deadline Congress currently faces, another expiration date – of enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits that Democrats first implemented in 2021 – is causing heartburn, too.

New Jersey state officials have estimated that 450,000 New Jerseyans would see their health insurance costs increase if the credits are allowed to expire, and the Congressional Budget Office says millions of people nationwide would lose their ability to afford insurance altogether. That’s prompted both Democrats and some Republicans to begin trying to find ways to avert a sudden subsidy cliff.

Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield), who represents a highly competitive New Jersey district, introduced a bill alongside a bipartisan set of his swing-district colleagues that would extend the credits for another year, saying that the extra year would give time for Congress to “[work] together on long-term solutions to lower health care premiums.”

Some Democrats, though, want to go much further. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch) is pushing a bill that would permanently expand the credits and repeal the GOP’s recent Medicaid cuts, and he said his support for a government funding deal may be contingent on taking action on health care costs.

Any effort to extend the credits will have to overcome opposition from many congressional Republicans, especially on the more conservative side of the conference. Rep. Van Drew, a co-sponsor of Kean’s one-year extension, had a simple argument for them: “They have to learn what everybody else has to learn in life: you don’t get your way 100% of the time… [Swing-district Republicans] are going to be very vulnerable – we need to help them.”

#MarriageGoals

Nadine Menendez, the wife of federal prisoner Bob Menendez, was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison yesterday, and her plea for leniency before Judge Sidney Stein exposed some rather large cracks in her marriage.

“I put my life in his hands and he strung me like a puppet,” Nadine said of Bob, per the New York Times and many other outlets. “The blindfold is off. I now know he is not my savior. He is not the man I thought he was.”

Nadine’s harsh words came despite Bob’s letter to Stein last month urging leniency for his wife, which declared that “to suggest that Nadine was money-hungry or in financial need, and therefore would solicit others for help, is simply wrong.” But Bob’s lawyers struck a very different tone during his own trial, when the senator was cast as an innocent victim of his wife’s duplicitous schemes. (The senator rather unbelievably said in his letter to Stein that he wasn’t aware of the arguments his lawyers would use on his behalf.)

Nadine, however, assured reporters after her sentencing that she does not intend to divorce her husband of five years.

24 years

Commemorating 24 years since terrorists crashed planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, the House Intelligence Committee announced the formation of a new bipartisan review of the 9/11 Commission Report recommendations, helmed in part by Rep. Gottheimer.

The new effort, which Gottheimer will co-lead with Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-New York), will “evaluate the progress made on the intelligence-related recommendations” issued by the commission in 2004, per the committee. Hearings and briefings will be held over the course of the next year in the lead-up to 9/11’s 25th anniversary, when a new report of findings and recommendations will be released.

“Twenty-four years after 9/11, we are still living with its aftermath – especially in New Jersey, where we lost hundreds of loved ones, friends, and first responders,” Gottheimer said. “In the years since, following the 9/11 report, we have made critical improvements to our intelligence and homeland security systems. But, our work remains unfinished. I will continue working across the aisle to ensure that we remember the lives lost, support the families of victims, and strengthen our nation’s defenses against terrorism.”

Service update

A different form of 9/11 commemoration came from Senator Andy Kim, who reintroduced a package of four bills yesterday that aim to “boost national service and encourage more Americans to engage in service” as part of Kim’s Answer the Call Agenda.

The bills, which Kim previously championed as a U.S. representative, variously provide $40 million for the Learn and Service America program to incorporate service learning into classrooms; create two Department of Education grants for county and municipal government internships and for students who complete 100 hours of volunteer work; establish pipeline programs at colleges and universities for underprivileged students interested in public service; and strengthen benefits for those who served in AmeriCorps or the Peace Corps.

Rep. Herb Conaway (D-Delran), who succeeded Kim in his Burlington County House seat, also introduced House versions of the first two bills.

“As we remember the 750 New Jerseyans who lost their lives [on September 11th], we should also remember the moments that followed – when patriotism brought us together instead of driving us apart,” Kim wrote in an op-ed yesterday. “That feeling of unity and responsibility for one another is needed now more than ever. That’s why, in the spirit of service, I have created a package of legislation aimed at helping get America back to this feeling that has faded to a distant memory for so many of us as the decades have ticked by.”

Discovery Channel

A new development arrived this week in Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark)’s battle against federal assault charges; McIver’s attorneys submitted a letter detailing exactly what documents it hopes to obtain via discovery, focusing in particular on any communication within the Justice Department related to McIver’s political views and her visit to the Delaney Hall immigrant detention center this past May.

“We have narrowly tailored our proposed scope of discovery to focus on evidence showing that the enforcement and charging decisions in this case were motivated by constitutionally impermissible factors,” wrote McIver’s attorney, Paul Fishman. McIver has asked the judge in the case, District Judge Jamel Semper, to throw out the charges in their entirety as being politically motivated and vindictive prosecution.

The Justice Department, not unexpectedly, is opposing McIver’s motion for discovery: “We believe that the discovery sought in your September 3rd letter is not covered by Rule 16,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark McCarren wrote. “Discovery in support of selective prosecution and selective enforcement claims is not provided as a matter of right.”

Other Garden State plots

• The Senate took two notable votes this week: one to allow for the consideration of multiple sub-Cabinet level presidential nominees at once (the so-called “nuclear option”) and another to kill an effort to mandate the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein. Senators Kim and Cory Booker voted against both.

• Rep. Norcross introduced the Empowering Striking Workers Act this week, a bill that would allow workers to bargain for unemployment insurance after at least two weeks of striking.

“Any union worker knows that going on strike is always the last resort,” said Norcross, himself a union electrician. “Workers don’t want to be on the picket line – they want to get back to work, reach a fair agreement, and provide for their families. The Empowering Striking Workers Act will make sure no worker is forced to choose between standing up for their rights and putting food on the table.”

• Rep. Gottheimer used a House Financial Services Committee hearing featuring New York City Comptroller Brad Lander to sound off on a number of his longtime foes: New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, congestion pricing, anti-Israel rhetoric, and the concept of socialism.

“People from New Jersey who commute into New York to work, to see doctors, to spend money, contribute to the economy,” Gottheimer told Lander at one point during their exchange. “You’ve obviously supported the Congestion Tax, which is hurting them. And the MTA, as you know, just recently announced that they will be increasing subway fares – the very mode of transportation you are suggesting commuters take instead of driving, which is part of what it’s encouraging.”