The shutdown-that-barely-was both started and ended this week: the House passed a bill to fund most government agencies for the rest of the fiscal year and the Department of Homeland Security for two weeks. The DHS’s new funding cliff will arrive on February 13, and it’s already looking like it will be a challenge to find any compromise that can earn both Republican and Democratic support.
Also on tap this week: a potential new U.S. Attorney pick in New Jersey, more litigation over the Gateway Tunnel project, and a special election primary to replace New Jersey’s new governor in Congress. Here’s some of what New Jersey’s members of Congress did in Washington this week.
Gate has no home here
It’s been a hectic week for the Gateway Tunnel, the bipartisan $16 billion project to build a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River that’s had its funding targeted by President Donald Trump. Just within the past few days:
• The Gateway Development Commission filed a lawsuit alleging that the Gateway funding freeze represented a breach of contract; Trump announced he was freezing the project’s funds last October, in the middle of the government shutdown fight, but the commission was able to continue work until today.
• The states of New Jersey and New York collectively filed a separate lawsuit to force the Trump administration to release the funding.
• Trump reportedly made an offer to unfreeze the funding if Penn Station and Dulles Airport were renamed after him, which Democrats swiftly rejected.
• Earlier tonight, the federal judge overseeing the New Jersey/New York case ordered the White House to continue funding Gateway, finding that the states face immediate and irreparable harm if the funding were to come to a halt.
Democrats have spent the entire affair excoriating the White House’s mercurial approach: the freeze is a “reckless, partisan, colossally stupid attack” (Rep. Nellie Pou), a “five-alarm fire” for New Jersey (Rep. Josh Gottheimer), and is an example of “playing politics with taxpayer money” (Senator Andy Kim).
Republicans have been more circumspect, though Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) did encourage the project’s funding to continue in a statement last week that did not mention the man attempting to halt it.
Dems say two weeks is too weak
In the wake of the killing of Alex Pretti and Renée Good by immigration enforcement agents in Minneapolis, Senate Democrats briefly derailed the government funding process late last week and negotiated – successfully – for a new appropriations deal that shortened DHS funding to just two weeks. That deal came before the House on Tuesday and passed 217-214, reopening the government from its four-day partial shutdown.
Even with the DHS funding changes, though, nine of New Jersey’s ten Democratic senators and representatives opposed the deal; “When I said ‘not one cent more to ICE,’ I meant it,” Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing) said. The one exception was Rep. Gottheimer, who argued that the package funded key New Jersey priorities while giving Congress time to figure out a bipartisan solution on the issues at DHS.
“Today’s vote was about three key things: First, to keep the government open to support our seniors, veterans, and families; second, to bring home huge wins for Jersey families and communities; and third, to start the clock on two weeks of negotiations on essential reforms to ICE,” Gottheimer said.
Now comes the even harder part: figuring out a new DHS funding bill that can pass both chambers of Congress by the end of next week. Senate Democrats have laid out a series of demands, including banning DHS agents from wearing face masks, mandating the use of body cameras, and requiring judicial warrants prior to enforcement actions, but Republicans have already dismissed many of them as nonstarters.
Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis), who initially criticized Pretti following the shooting for carrying a licensed firearm before partially walking his statements back, said that he was at least open to negotiating policy changes at DHS.
“We need to approach the Homeland Security issues in a thoughtful and measured way,” Van Drew said. “I am willing to negotiate and work through these issues, but that should happen with the government open and functioning without forcing unnecessary disruption on the American people.”
The most prominent J. Fox in New Jersey politics
The Trump administration has deployed an extraordinary number of different strategies to get its allies installed as the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, and the New Jersey Globe reported this week that they’re now trying a new one: appealing directly to the state’s federal judges to appoint one of the office’s top prosecutors, Jordan Fox.
When the office of U.S. Attorney is vacant, as it has been since Alina Habba resigned in December (and arguably since she first took on the role of acting U.S. Attorney in July, a move that was later ruled unlawful), District Court judges have the ability to name a new U.S. Attorney themselves.
That’s what New Jersey’s judges did in 2018, when they appointed Craig Carpenito to the role after his nomination had stalled in the U.S. Senate. And it’s what they tried to do again last summer, when they voted to install Desiree Grace after Habba’s term as interim U.S. Attorney had run out, only for the Justice Department to fire Grace and appoint Habba in her stead, kicking off a legal battle that continues to this day.
The 30-year-old Fox has been calling federal judges, testing whether they would be amenable to voting to put her in the office. Fox is currently one of three prosecutors supervising different divisions of the office in the absence of a U.S. Attorney, an arrangement that has drawn its own ongoing legal challenge; the Trump administration has no imminent plans to officially nominate anyone for the job.
Landslide!
The people of New Jersey’s 11th congressional district, having gone without a representative in the House since now-Gov. Mikie Sherrill resigned in November, thought they’d wake up this morning with a clear idea of who their next member of Congress would be – but uncertainty reigns instead.
Analilia Mejia currently leads Tom Malinowski by just under 700 votes, 29% to 28%, for the district’s nomination, with a couple thousand votes left to count; Mejia has said she anticipates she’ll come out on top, but Malinowski has not yet conceded. Given that Mejia spent less money and had fewer local endorsements than any of her top competitors, a victory would be a substantial upset and a big win for state progressives.
Whoever wins will face GOP nominee Joe Hathaway, the mayor of the suburban town of Randolph, in the April 16 special general election, and then have to compete for a full term in this year’s regularly scheduled election; given the district’s blue hue, though, Democrats are likely to hold the seat.
And if recent special elections are any indication, the winner of the April election should become a full-fledged member of the House very soon afterwards. Last weekend, Texas Democrat Christian Menefee convincingly won a special election over a fellow Democrat, and he was sworn into the House just two days later.
Kristi’s going in the burn book
Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark), facing federal assault charges related to a scuffle with DHS agents last year, took her issues with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem directly to her front door this week, joining a protest outside DHS headquarters calling for Noem’s removal.
“Secretary Noem tried to shame me, she tried to embarrass me, and she tried to smear me. But I am not ashamed of doing my job,” McIver said. “Kristi, this is for you: you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You pretend to be tough, you stage pictures with agents, you call citizens ‘domestic terrorists,’ and you gleefully terrorize our communities, because you are a coward, you are a liar, and you are a threat to the safety of our communities.”
Also at the protest were Reps. Watson Coleman and Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City), who along with McIver have formed an increasingly tightly knit trio of progressive Democrats focused on combating Trump’s immigration agenda.
The three representatives also held two events together this week, one of them a more traditional town hall and the other a “Know Your Rights” information session for constituents dealing with ICE interactions. “When the Trump Administration and ICE agents believe they are above the law, it is more important than ever before for our residents to be informed about their rights,” Menendez said.
National Guarden State
Senator Kim, alongside Senator Gary Peters (D-Michigan), issued a new report this week on the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard to Washington D.C.; Peters is the ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Kim is the top Democrat on a subcommittee focused on disaster management and Washington D.C.
In the report, Homeland Security staff wrote that the National Guard mobilization is costing taxpayers around $1.65 million each day, has resulted in “no directly attributable impact on crime,” and risks turning the National Guard into a politicized arm of the executive branch.
“This report shows that President Trump is spending hundreds of millions from working families’ pockets to keep the National Guard in D.C. with no clear strategy, no evidence of effectiveness, and no end in sight,” Kim said. “If this administration was truly prioritizing the safety of our communities, it’d allow the National Guard to instead focus on their core military responsibilities and work together with congress to get local law enforcement and leaders in D.C. the funding and resources that they need from the federal government.”
Brownback to the Future
Rep. Chris Smith (R-Manchester) held a joint hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Africa and Western Hemisphere Subcommittees this week on one of his most cherished topics: global religious freedom.
Calling forward witnesses including Sam Brownback, the former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, Smith said that religious freedom around the world is under increasing threat, and the State Department needs to take proactive steps to combat it in China, Nigeria, and elsewhere.
“More than ever before, vigorous U.S. leadership and diplomacy are needed to address religious freedom violations globally – and end persecution of Christians and all other vulnerable religious groups,” Smith said in his opening remarks. “This committee and I are committed to working with the Administration to make this a reality.”
