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

On Monday, Congress returned from its brief 4th of July recess, and immediately began a frenzied rush to pass a number of important bills before a longer break arrives in August. Here’s some of what New Jersey’s 14 members of Congress did this week.

They make members of Congress sign NDAAs?

The big bill commanding the House’s attention this week was the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), an annual must-pass bill that appropriates funding to the Department of Defense.

Earlier today, the House passed the bill on a largely party-line 219-210 vote; among New Jersey’s representatives, all three Republicans voted in favor and all nine Democrats voted against. That’s a far cry from the original bipartisan committee vote of 58-1, which happened before a bevy of conservative amendments were added yesterday.

Many of those amendments focused on culture-war issues like abortion and DEI offices that, on the surface, have little to do with defense funding. Another set of amendments, most of which concerned cutting funding for Ukraine and NATO, were rejected.

New Jersey’s 12 representatives took their own paths on deciding how to vote on the amendments. The delegation’s Democrats opposed most of them, but with a few exceptions; Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Wyckoff) in particular was amenable to voting against a majority of his caucus on select issues.

As for Republicans, Reps. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) and Chris Smith (R-Manchester) voted for many of the contentious social policy amendments, but they steered clear of those slashing aid to Ukraine. The same was not true, however, for Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis), who aligned himself with his party’s most conservative wing on nearly all of last night’s votes.

No amendment authored by a New Jersey representative came up for floor debate yesterday, though it wasn’t for lack of trying. Smith tried to get the Department of Defense to study the adverse impacts of offshore wind development, while Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) pushed to codify the Defense Department’s existing policy of facilitating abortions; both amendments, as well as several others authored by New Jerseyans, were not brought for a vote.

But some non-controversial amendments from New Jersey’s representatives were in fact added to the bill by voice vote without much fanfare. One from Smith, for example, requires a report from the Secretary of the Navy on deaths and injuries during SEAL training, while another from Rep. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City) helps retiring servicemembers get connected to cybersecurity job opportunities.

Arriving in the Senate, defense bill is in grave Sherrill

In addition to pushing for an amendment codifying the Department of Defense’s abortion policies, Sherrill also became one of her party’s leading spokespeople against an amendment from Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) that did the opposite, prohibiting the Defense Department from using funds on assisting servicemembers and military families gain access to abortion services.

Sherrill spoke on the House floor against the amendment, and did so again on a press call this morning with fellow Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pennsylvania).

“Over the course of this week, Speaker [Kevin] McCarthy has basically given the far-right extremists everything they’ve asked for,” Sherrill said. “They’ve turned a bipartisan defense bill into a vehicle to drive a really out-of-touch, extreme culture-war agenda.”

Jackson’s abortion amendment was ultimately adopted with only two Republicans voting no; Kean, Smith, and Van Drew all voted for it. While Sherrill didn’t call anyone out by name, she castigated her moderate Republican colleagues for going along with the more conservative wing of their party.

“There are those across the aisle … who realize that this is bad,” she said. “They will say, ‘this is a really bad idea, this is not where the party should be going, this is a mistake.’ Well then, why did everyone but two people in the Republican conference vote for this really bad amendment? That was shocking to me.”

Fortunately for Democrats, the chances that the bill as it currently stands will become law is near-zero. Democrats, of course, control the Senate and the presidency, so while the bill that passed the House today is a first step, there’s a lot of negotiating left to do.

Van Drew sinks his teeth into FBI director

At a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Van Drew – the only New Jersey representative on the high-profile committee – made a number of tooth-themed criticisms of FBI director Christopher Wray, who was subject to hours of questioning by committeemembers.

“I’m basically just a simple country dentist,” Van Drew said. “But I do know my dentistry, and one thing I know about is abscesses… That’s the type of infection that I feel is within the FBI today. It has gotten so deep that we need to get in there with a metaphorical scalpel before it kills our nation.”

Van Drew specifically drew attention to an FBI memo that allegedly targeted Catholic churches, getting into an awkward back-and-forth with Wray over whether or not the FBI maintains lists of religious organizations for purposes of surveillance.

“We do not maintain any kind of list of religious institutions that we’re targeting, because we are not targeting religious institutions,” Wray said.

Van Drew asked about a number of different religious institutions – Catholic churches, Eastern Orthodox churches, Jewish synagogues – and Wray repeatedly said the FBI is not targeting them. But despite Wray’s denials, Van Drew ended his remarks with another frustrated rebuke of the agency.

“Let me tell you, it’s a sorry state of affairs that these questions are questions I have to ask, and it’s a damn shame to see what’s become of our once-universally respected FBI,” he said.

More like Enes Kanter Freehold

Rep. Smith, who co-chairs the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) – an unusual body that includes representatives from the House, Senate and executive branch – invited basketball player Enes Kanter Freedom to testify at the commission’s meeting this week.

Freedom played in the NBA for more than a decade, but he is probably best known for his political activism, especially his criticisms of Chinese human rights abuses and the NBA’s ties to China. Freedom was let go from the Houston Rockets in 2022, a decision he claims was because of his outspoken views, though the NBA has denied that they played a role.

“One our distinguished witnesses today has paid an enormous price – the loss of his amazing 11-year basketball career in the NBA – for his courageous stand for human rights, especially for the Uyghurs, the victims of Xi Jinping’s ongoing genocide,” Smith said at the beginning of Tuesday’s CECC hearing. “The Chinese Communist Party ordered the NBA to sanction – fire – Enes Kanter Freedom and like cowards, they obeyed.”

Menendez Fed up with lack of Hispanic representation

On Wednesday, the Senate Banking Committee cleared Adriana Kugler’s nomination to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors on a 13-10 vote. While Kugler isn’t from New Jersey, one of her biggest cheerleaders is: Senator Bob Menendez.

In the months leading up to Kugler’s nomination, Menendez vociferously pushed for President Joe Biden to name a Latino or Latina to the board for the first time in its 109-year history. (Kugler is of Colombian descent.) And as a member of the Banking Committee, Menendez got to cast a vote for Kugler on Wednesday.

“Simply put, we are witnessing history continue to unfold in real time as we usher a new chapter at the Federal Reserve,” Menendez said in a statement released shortly after the vote. “Dr. Kugler’s presence on the Board of Governors will ensure that for the first time in our nation’s history, the 62 million Americans who call this nation home will finally have a seat at the table where the most consequential decisions on monetary policy are made.”

More Garden State plots

• Senator Menendez and Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch) are pushing for Congress to pass their bill that reauthorizes the National Flood Insurance Program and makes several major reforms that could reduce insurance premiums in New Jersey.

• On Monday, Gottheimer visited Teaneck to unveil his new Infrastructure Investment Portal, a database of Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill funding designed to keep New Jersey’s local governments informed on grants they could be eligible for.

• Pallone officially commemorated the transfer of ownership of the James J. Howard Marine Sciences Laboratory at Sandy Hook to the federal government on Tuesday, an initiative he had shepherded through Congress. He also announced that $1.5 million in Sandy relief funding would go towards the environmental research lab.

• Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing) and Senator Cory Booker, along with several of their colleagues, reintroduced the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Uterine Fibroid Research and Education Act, a bill aimed at bringing attention to and directing research towards uterine fibroids.

• And finally, Kean debuted a new “Tuesdays with Tom” social media segment this week, which he said he’ll use to preview what the upcoming week holds for him in Congress.