April was a busy month for the New Jersey delegation: Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield)’s absence made national headlines, Rep. Analilia Mejia (D-Glen Ridge) joined the House after her special election victory, and debates over surveillance laws and Department of Homeland Security funding stretched on for hours, with one critical Senate vote coming at the lovely hour of 3:22 a.m.
The House and the Senate are now off for their early-May recess (not to be confused with their late-May recess for Memorial Day); here’s some of what New Jersey’s members of Congress did in Washington this week.
Thank goodness TMZ DC is on the case
Rep. Kean, missing from Congress due to a medical problem for well over a month, has at last released a statement on his absence in his own words, though lots of questions remain unanswered.
“I want to thank my constituents and colleagues for their patience as I address a personal medical issue,” Kean said in his Monday statement. “My doctors continue to assure me that my recovery will be complete and that I will be back to the job I love very soon. I expect to return to a full schedule and be at 100 percent.”
Kean last cast votes on March 5, with his office citing a personal medical issue but declining to give any more details. His absence from nearly 70 roll-call votes began drawing the attention of national news outlets last week; this week, TMZ DC joined the hunt for the congressman, though they weren’t any more successful than everyone else at getting answers.
SurveilUSA
Congress has spent weeks banging its head against the wall of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and this week didn’t bring any long-term resolution. After failing to extend the law, which permits warrantless surveillance of foreign nationals, for eighteen months, three years, or five years, the House and Senate passed a 45-day stopgap and punted the issue into June.
Most Democrats voted against the many extension efforts, but Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly) was not among them. A member of the Intelligence Committee, the congressman argued that FISA is a key part of the American intelligence community’s ability to protect the country.
“I know that the information that we receive, that the intelligence community receives, from these sources is critical to protecting our country. There’s no ambiguity,” Gottheimer said. “Of course, there’s also protections in place to make sure that it’s only used to listen to the bad guys, to protect Americans, and no one should play politics, ever, with our national security.”
Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis), meanwhile, said he had his own concerns about FISA, but he believed letting the law lapse would be worse than the alternative.
“Here we are in Iran. We know we have sleeper cells, not just Iranian but in general, we have lots of security issues in the country,” Van Drew said. “Do we just literally let it lapse, and we don’t have the ability at all to do queries or searches, or do we do this for now and then try to do better in the future? And I chose the latter.”
Shutdown’s over (if you want it)
Also a key issue this week: reopening the Department of Homeland Security, which was stuck in a seemingly endless shutdown thanks to Democratic objections to ICE funding.
Part 1 of the GOP plan to fix that: pass a bill funding all of DHS except for ICE, which House Democrats allowed through on a voice vote, thus ending the shutdown. Part 2: get Republicans on board for a party-line package providing $70 billion in funding to ICE alone, utilizing the same reconciliation mechanism that was used for the One Big Beautiful Bill last year.
A budget resolution for Reconciliation 2.0 passed the Senate last week and the House this week, both on largely party-line votes. Democrats have been dismissive of the effort, saying that it shows how out-of-touch Republicans are with the country.
“You would think, ‘Let’s use reconciliation to create some relief for people.’ Instead, they’re using it to do more money for DHS, for ICE, for CBP,” Rep. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City) said. “Republicans are just either ignorant – they don’t talk to their constituents – or they’re purposefully trying to make it harder.”
Under the Adele Inflation Index, the minimum wage really should be $30
Back when she was a union organizer and a leader of the Working Families Party, one of now-Rep. Analilia Mejia (D-Glen Ridge)’s foremost goals was increasing New Jersey’s minimum wage. After running into a brick wall with Gov. Chris Christie, activists found Gov. Phil Murphy to be more receptive; with Mejia right behind him, Murphy signed a bill in 2019 that raised the wage to $15 an hour by 2024.
Now that she’s in Congress, Mejia is pushing for the next frontier in minimum wage legislation. The federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 for close to two decades; under a new bill Mejia helped to introduce this week, that would soar all the way to $25.
“We need an economy that reflects the realities of 2026, not one stuck over a decade ago,” Mejia said of the Living Wage for All Act, her first major legislative effort as a congresswoman. “That’s why I led the fight to raise New Jersey’s minimum wage to $15 an hour. And it’s why I’m proud to partner with Congresswoman Delia Ramirez on the Living Wage for All Act to raise the federal minimum wage to $25 an hour.”
Donald Norcross wins ‘Most on-brand line of questioning’ contest
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testified before the House and Senate Armed Services Committees this week, giving members of Congress their first opportunity to confront the Pentagon’s top official since the Iran War began.
Democrats used their allotted time to grill Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Dan Caine on the war; Rep. Herb Conaway (D-Delran), who joined the panel late last year (and thus was the very last representative in the questioning order), said that the conflict is unconstitutional and harmful to the American economy.
“It’s estimated that the first six days of the war cost around $12 billion alone, and we are now hitting 60 days of warfighting without a plan to exit this conflict,” Conaway said. “The administration has failed to transparently tell the Congress or the American people what the costs of the war are, and why we are at war, and expects Americans to keep footing the bill.”
Conaway’s fellow Armed Services Democrat, Rep. Donald Norcross (D-Camden), instead spent his time on two other issues of concern: a provision requiring more military equipment being made in America, and the Trump administration’s moves to end collective bargaining rights at the Department of Defense.
“You talk about championing the American worker and how important this is, yet in a memo on April 9, you terminated all collective bargaining agreements across the DoD, taking away from hundreds of thousands of workers at DoD their collective bargaining rights that they voted for,” Norcross told Hegseth. “How do you square that circle that you care about this, yet you take away their voice on the job?”
Hegseth responded that collective bargaining rights had interfered with workforce efficiency: “With our ear to the ground, in those shipyards and other factory floors, there were issues with collective bargaining which led to restrictions to the workforce and our ability to move faster.”
We are the 9.625%!
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly) is up in arms over a proposal to raise sales taxes (from 6.625% to 9.625%) within the Meadowlands District for the World Cup, putting him at odds with Gov. Mikie Sherrill, his former congressional neighbor.
“People in our state are already stretched too thin, and we should not ask them to cover even more costs tied to the FIFA World Cup,” Gottheimer wrote in a letter to Sherrill and other state leaders. “New Jersey taxpayers should be excluded from all fare hikes and tax increases related to the games.”
Sherrill has defended the proposed tax increase as being relatively narrow in scope – it would be in effect from June 12 through July 21 in a roughly 30-square-mile zone surrounding MetLife Stadium that includes very few residential areas, and New Jersey residents would be able to claim credits to offset the tax – and said it would be an important way of defraying the World Cup’s costs. “This is a tourism fee,” Sherrill said on WNYC last month.
Callooh! Callais!
The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais to weaken Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, rendering majority-minority areas less protected in the redistricting process, was greeted with dismay by New Jersey’s Democratic leaders, particularly its leading Black politicians.
“The Supreme Court hid itself behind the word ‘intentional,’” Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing) said. “I think the intentionality of diminishing the Black vote, and any Democratic vote, has been obvious from the very beginning. It comes out of the lips of the President of the United States. It comes out of the lips of leadership.”
The decision has many Republican-led states plotting how to draw their Democratic-held, majority-Black districts into oblivion, and some Democratic-led states are mulling how to counterattack. Among them is New Jersey, where legislators would have to get rid of a constitutionally enshrined bipartisan redistricting commission if they want to redraw the state’s congressional map.
“If Trump is going to try to attack fair voting across the country, then New Jersey’s going to stand up so that we can create a counterbalance to whatever he’s doing,” Gov. Sherrill said on CNN yesterday.
Other Garden State plots
• Rep. Chris Smith (R-Manchester) held a Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission meeting this week on human rights in North Korea, with a particular focus on the North Korean government’s limits on freedom of expression and information.
“[The North Korean regime] is focused on denying North Koreans access to any information about or from the outside world,” Smith said in his opening remarks. “But even within that closed system, we are reminded today of a crucial truth: some information, some ideas from the outside world can always get through – and it does – and all of the government’s efforts to suppress it make it all the more precious and powerful.”
• Rep. Menendez introduced a bill yesterday that would create a 24/7 hotline to provide mental health support for caregivers of those with intellectual disabilities.
“Caregivers are the backbone of support for millions of Americans living with developmental disabilities, but they are too often left without the resources, guidance, and support they deserve,” Menendez said. “Our CARES Hotline Act creates a critical lifeline to provide caregivers with emotional support, counseling, and other key services.”
• Rep. Van Drew said that a major project to design and construct new barracks and training facilities at the Coast Guard Training Center Cape May is officially underway, with the federal government awarding the $400 million contract this week.
“This is the single largest federal investment in the history of South Jersey, and we are finally seeing it come to life,” Van Drew said. “The contract is awarded, the design is moving forward, and this is where it starts to become real. Almost every enlisted member of the Coast Guard begins their service in Cape May, and these young men and women deserve modern, reliable facilities from day one.”