Both the House and the Senate were in town this week, but it was the Senate where the real action took place, featuring battles over a new Department of Homeland Security nominee, a controversial voter ID bill, and another Iran war powers resolution.
New Jersey representatives also pushed some legislative priorities of their own regarding the World Cup, energy bills, and license plate obscurers. Here’s some of what New Jersey’s members of Congress did in Washington this week.
Mullin it over
Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma) looks like he’s on his way to becoming the Trump administration’s next Homeland Security Secretary, taking over for ex-Secretary Kristi Noem at a department that remains shut down.
As a member of the Homeland Security Committee, Senator Andy Kim was able to confront Mullin directly on New Jersey and national issues during a hearing on Wednesday. Kim secured a handful of notable commitments from the likely soon-to-be secretary, including a promise to visit the site of a controversial planned immigrant detention facility in Roxbury.
The senator, however, said that even if he believes Mullin will be more competent than Noem, he still isn’t willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the Trump administration anymore.
“Single individuals, they can be good-intentioned and qualified, but in the wrong environment, or in an environment that just is dead-set on pushing in a certain direction, they’re not going to be effective,” Kim said. “I just cannot, in this environment, see how anybody’s going to be able to address this when it so clearly goes up to Stephen Miller and ultimately Donald Trump.”
Kim voted against Mullin in committee, but that wasn’t enough to stop his nomination from advancing 8-7. Senator Cory Booker also intends to oppose Mullin on the Senate floor.
Filibluster
In what has seemingly become the major policy battle of the 2026 congressional session, the Senate began debate this week on the SAVE America Act, a bill implementing strict new nationwide voter ID requirements.
President Trump is strongly behind the bill, as is nearly every member of the House and Senate GOP conferences, but Democratic opposition has prevented it from reaching the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a filibuster. That’s prompted plenty of intraparty squabbling on the Republican side, with some (including Trump) calling for an overhaul of Senate rules in order to push the bill through; the Senate will be in town through the weekend to continue debate.
At a rally outside the Capitol on Wednesday, Senator Kim and many of his Democratic colleagues lambasted the bill, saying that it amounted to an attack on the right to vote.
“Why are they doing this? It’s for themselves,” Kim said. “It’s not the SAVE America Act, it’s the SAVE Trump from His Horrible Policies Act. He’s trying to distract us and move us off of what the American people actually want to see done.”
Senate Six Geese a-Laying
The SAVE Act and Mullin’s nomination aren’t the only things bedeviling the Senate; there’s also an ongoing battle over the fast-developing war in Iran.
Senator Booker and five of his Democratic colleagues, rallying under the banner of the “Senate Six,” are making a concerted effort to rein in the Trump administration via a series of resolutions nullifying any military actions that haven’t received congressional approval. One such war powers resolution sponsored by Booker himself came up for a vote on Wednesday; the Senate shot it down on a 47-53, largely party-line vote.
It’s the second time that the Senate has rejected an effort to halt the war since hostilities began; Booker said that he’s frustrated but undeterred by his Republican colleagues.
“The veterans and military families I heard from today underscored the horrible stakes of war and why I am using every lever of power I can in the Senate to hold this administration accountable and stop its war of choice,” he said after his resolution failed.
Bills, bills, bills
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly) has long made lowering costs the core of his policy and political agenda, and he released a barrage of proposals this week to target one particularly high-cost area: energy.
At an event in Fort Lee on Monday, Gottheimer said that he’ll be putting together a new “More Energy, Lower Bills” task force to bring down energy bills, and highlighted legislation he’s introduced to streamline energy permitting processes, increase federal coordination on energy projects, and let coal plants use federal funds to convert into natural gas or renewable energy facilities.
“It’s a false assumption to say that the U.S. has to sacrifice longer-term climate goals if we take an all-of-the-above energy approach domestically,” the congressman said. “We can do both – and get energy prices down. We can have nuclear, natural gas, and alternative energies.”
Anything to keep it from becoming MetDeath Stadium
In her role as the top Democrat on a major sporting event-focused Homeland Security task force, Rep. Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon) has been publicly fretting for the last year about whether upcoming World Cup matches, including some set to be held in her district, will become targets for ICE activity.
This week, Pou introduced a new bill, the Save the World Cup Act, to forestall that possibility. Under the bill, which faces long odds of passage, ICE would be prohibited from carrying out most civil immigration enforcement activities within a mile of World Cup matches or Fan Festivals, including the World Cup final at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford.
“With fewer than 90 days until kickoff, the World Cup should bring the world together and not leave families wondering if ICE agents will be waiting outside stadiums,” Pou said. “When I recently asked the head of ICE directly for a simple assurance that they would stay away from the games, he refused. That is unacceptable. So my legislation draws a firm line on the pitch: no ICE raids.”
Get well soon!
Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) missed all House votes this week, a rarity for a congressman who made it to 359 out of last year’s 361 House roll-call votes. Kean’s office said in a brief statement that the absences were due to a health matter.
“The congressman is addressing a personal health matter,” a Kean spokesperson said. “He will be returning to a full regular schedule soon.”
Kean’s office did not provide specifics on what is afflicting the congressman, or on whether he’ll be back in action before next week’s House votes.
Coyne flip
New Jersey’s U.S. Attorney’s office – which, according to a series of judges’ rulings, hasn’t had a lawfully appointed leader since last July – was in the news again this week.
In a story first broken by the New York Times, District Judge Zahid Quraishi ejected a federal prosecutor, Mark Coyne, from a hearing after angrily questioning him about who is really running the office. In particular, Quraishi was insistent on finding out whether Alina Habba, who was booted from the U.S. Attorney role last December, still has a hand in running the office.
“You don’t get to blindside the court and do whatever it is you guys want to do,” Quraishi told Coyne. “So if you continue to speak, you can leave.”
It still remains unclear what, exactly, the Trump administration’s long-term plans are for the office; no U.S. Attorney nominee has been submitted to the Senate, and judicial rulings disqualifying both Habba and the triumvirate of prosecutors appointed to replace her have yet to be appealed.
Other Garden State plots
• Rep. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City) introduced new legislation on Tuesday that would ban the sale of products that obscure license plates and help drivers evade tolls, and create a new grant program for tracking toll evaders.
“The revenues lost to toll evasion mean less funding to improve public transit and to operate and maintain our transportation infrastructure,” Menendez said. “We are taking action to stop toll evaders from unfairly depriving residents of the benefits of toll revenues being reinvested into our communities, while also improving safety for law enforcement officers.”
• The Trump administration rolled out an AI framework this morning that would seek to limit states’ abilities to regulate AI on their own, a framework that Rep. Gottheimer called “a half-measure that falls short of what’s necessary for ‘Smart AI’ regulation.”
“Americans need protection – but this means nothing if we allow the AI industry to be the Wild West,” Gottheimer said. “Preemption [of state laws] only makes sense if federal law effectively replaces what states have built with a standard that is truly comprehensive and protects Americans.”
• Senator Kim has a new state director: Paul Aronsohn, a former disability ombudsman in ex-Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration. He replaces Sue Altman, who left Kim’s office to embark on a second campaign for Congress.
“I’ve asked [Paul] to serve as my State Director because I want to build something different,” Kim said. “I want to build the strongest constituent service operation in the country and a team that will focus on solving problems for Jersey families, not for the powerful and well-connected.”