New Jersey has one new member of Congress, and another one is missing: those are the two stories that dominated state attention, and made national headlines, this week.
Work also began in the Senate on a new reconciliation package to fund the Department of Homeland Security, while New Jersey’s delegation debated on human trafficking legislation, World Cup ticket pricing, and TikTok age verification. Here’s some of what New Jersey’s members of Congress did in Washington this week.
14 Again
Rep. Analilia Mejia (D-Glen Ridge) took office as the 11th district’s new congresswoman on Monday night, four days after her special election victory over Republican Joe Hathaway and five months after Mikie Sherrill resigned from the seat to become governor.
In her first speech on the House floor, Mejia spoke at length on the 14th Amendment, which guaranteed rights to citizenship and equal protection, and jabbed at the current presidential administration – prompting jeers and shouts of “order” from the Republican side of the House chamber.
“At a time where our Constitution and our rights are under strain, we are called not just to serve but to stand up to protect and to deliver on the promise of equal protection and justice under our great laws,” Mejia said. “That is the work ahead of us; that is the work that we must take on.”
Mejia was quickly assigned a seat on the Homeland Security Committee, putting the new congresswoman, who called for abolishing ICE on the campaign trail, in a position to directly oversee the Trump administration’s immigration agenda. During her first committee hearing on Wednesday, Mejia said Trump’s agencies have “turned their weapons against our own communities, terrorizing families and citizens and undermining the trust that the American people deserve.”
Her arrival in Congress also gives Democrats a small boost in a chamber where a bill’s passage or failure often depends on just one or two votes. Within the last two weeks, however, two other Democrats have resigned from their seats amid misconduct allegations and a third died, pushing the caucus’s numbers back down again.
TKJMIA
Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) continued to miss votes this week, and it’s starting to become an issue of national prominence.
Kean’s absence from Congress began the week of March 16, with his office saying that he was dealing with a “personal health matter” and that he’d be returning to a full schedule “soon.” He’s since missed 50 roll-call votes and well over a month of congressional business, but his office has continued to stay mum about what the health issue is or when he’ll be back, asserting only that he’s “expected to be totally fine.”
The extended absence caught the attention of out-of-state news outlets like the New York Times and the New York Post, with Politico reporting on Wednesday that Kean’s colleagues have little idea of where he is; Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) said there’s been “radio silence” when he’s tried to contact Kean. House Speaker Mike Johnson, though, said yesterday that he’s spoken with Kean and been assured he’ll be alright.
“I was happy to speak to Tom Kean, Jr. this afternoon by phone,” Johnson said in a statement. “He is attending to a personal health matter and expects to be back to 100% very soon.”
Hard to reconcile
Republicans in Congress have begun moving forward with a new reconciliation process, a maneuver that lets them dodge the Senate filibuster and pass a bill on a party-line vote, though this year’s effort is likely to be much less far-reaching than last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill.
In the early hours of yesterday morning, Senate Republicans approved a budget resolution that paves the way for a reconciliation bill providing approximately $70 billion in funding for DHS, which has been shuttered since funding lapsed in February. Every Democratic senator voted against the resolution, among them Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim, as did two Republicans; Democrats also forced a series of votes on amendments relating to utility bills, drug pricing, and more, but all were rejected.
“Republicans are just continuing to push to try to get tens of billions of dollars to ICE without any accountability, without any reforms,” Kim said. “And I just can’t believe it – after what we saw in Minnesota and elsewhere around this country, going against the will of the American people.”
It’s one ticket to East Rutherford, Michael. What could it cost? $150?
As a $150 train ticket to the World Cup becomes an issue of international importance, two New Jersey congresspeople are laying the blame on FIFA, which they say has refused to be a cooperative partner with New Jersey leaders.
Reps. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City) and Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon), alongside New York Rep. Dan Goldman, sent a letter to FIFA president Gianni Infantino insisting that FIFA subsidize transit costs for fans; New Jersey officials have estimated that the eight World Cup matches hosted at East Rutherford’s MetLife Stadium will cost NJTransit at least $48 million.
“We are confident that, like us, FIFA does not want to make the tournament games available only to the wealthy,” the letter states. “Given the revenue that FIFA will generate from these games, it is incumbent on the organization to subsidize transportation costs to allow global citizens to take in the most popular sporting event in the world.”
Of Paramount importance
Senator Booker, the ranking Democrat on a Senate Judiciary subcommittee focused on antitrust and competition policy, has been on the warpath recently against the proposed merger of Paramount-Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery.
Last week, Booker held a “shadow hearing” with a variety of attorneys and showbiz industry professionals, among them actor Mark Ruffalo, to draw attention to the risks of the merger. And this week, after shareholders approved the merger, Booker characterized it as a disaster-in-waiting that would harm both industry workers and consumers.
“Any merger of this scale – let alone the largest media merger in U.S. history – would normally have Republicans dissecting it under a microscope. Its CEO would have had to appear before the Senate,” Booker said. “Yet there’s been nothing but silence from our colleagues across the aisle while David Ellison has refused to appear before the Senate to answer the routine questions asked of any CEO looking to consolidate this much market power.”
23-term Rep. Chris Smith seeks to renew 10-term Rep. Chris Smith’s accomplishments
Rep. Chris Smith (R-Manchester), the original author of a landmark anti-human trafficking bill signed into law in 2000, is making a concerted push for his new reauthorization effort, the Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act of 2025.
At a press conference outside the Capitol on Wednesday, Smith said that the bill – which keeps federal programs designed to combat human trafficking in place through 2029 – is of critical importance for trafficking victims and their families.
“I want to recognize and thank the amazing, heroic and extraordinarily compassionate survivor-leaders who helped write this bill,” Smith said at the press conference. “Their courage, strength, tenacity, wisdom, and above all, their love for the vulnerable, not only inspires, but helped us get it right. This legislation is of, by, and for them – to help heal, restore, and empower.”
I think there probably need to be more safeguards on overage users too
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly) is spearheading a bipartisan effort to get TikTok, which has had a distinctly up-and-down relationship with Congress in recent years, to add more age verification protections.
In a letter to TikTok CEO Adam Presser co-written with Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik and Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi, Gottheimer said that the app should implement parental notification for underage users and do more to prevent those users from seeing or sharing inappropriate or sensitive content.
“While TikTok requires users to be at least 13 years old to create an account, new users are only required to provide their date of birth with no actual way to prove whether the input is truthful,” the letter reads. “I am concerned that there are a significant number of Americans younger than 13 using the app, and even more who are younger than 18 bypassing TikTok’s built-in safeguards for teen and younger teen accounts.”
The public demands more data
As data center construction becomes a key issue for many voters in New Jersey, Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark) introduced a new bill yesterday that she says would foster more public input in the process.
The AI Data Center Site Selection Transparency Act, as it’s called, would require developers to publicly disclose data center plans at least 180 days before development begins, including details like electricity and water usage, and post the disclosures in a variety of physical and digital locations.
“When communities are denied information, they are denied a voice,” McIver said. “Your energy bills shouldn’t skyrocket because a developer snuck an AI data center into your neighborhood without giving you the opportunity to speak out. No corporation should be able to change the fabric of a community and leave its residents to absorb the costs.”