Click here for a web version of the New Jersey Globe’s April 2025 vote tracker, with links to the bills and votes in question, or scroll to the bottom of this article for a PDF version.
The budget vote
Earlier this year, Republicans in the Senate and the House approved two different versions of a budget resolution, the first step towards eventually passing the party’s tax- and spending-focused legislative agenda. In early April, Republicans had to go through the process again, this time with a resolution that had been negotiated between the two chambers.
After some hemming and hawing on the House side, the resolution passed on near-perfect party-line votes. In New Jersey’s delegation, the vote broke down on the exact same way big-ticket votes usually do: the state’s three Republican congressmen voted in support, and every Democrat in attendance was opposed.
“Republicans again put billionaires over the best interest of the American people,” Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark) said of the resolution. “The bad budget they just passed will slash billions from Medicaid, gut food assistance, and sell out working families all while they give big money to billionaires. They’re hurting real people and they don’t care.”
The resolution, though, merely directs committees to make varying levels of spending cuts or increases; now it’s up to Republicans to actually figure out what those cuts will be, and how to convince their members to vote for them. New Jersey’s Republicans have drawn various red lines over Medicaid, SALT, and energy tax credits, something that Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) pointed out shortly after the budget resolution passed the House.
“Anyone who tells you this resolution includes cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security is not telling you the truth,” Van Drew said. “I have been in constant communication with House leadership and the Speaker, making it clear that any bill that threatens these critical programs will not get my support.”
Other major bills
Shortly after approving the budget resolution, House Republicans also pushed through the SAVE Act, a bill that would require Americans to provide proof of citizenship while registering to vote. New Jersey’s delegation again broke down on party lines, with Democrats calling the bill – which is unlikely to pass the Senate – a “solution in search of a problem.”
“Candidly, I believe measures like this are designed not to safeguard elections but to cause distrust in our electoral processes and make it harder for everyday Americans to participate in democracy,” Rep. Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon) said. “Countering those few existing cases of voter fraud demand focused enforcement, not a nuclear response. So while I will always support securing democracy, I oppose this legislation.”
On a more bipartisan note, the House was also able to pass the Take It Down Act, which targets revenge porn online (both real and AI-generated), and the TICKET Act, which aims to increase the transparency of ticket prices. Both got unanimous support from the New Jersey representatives present for the vote.
Over in the Senate, Republicans continued plugging away at nominations, and Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim voted against nearly all of them; one interesting exception was now-Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine, who came to office in a controversial way but who nonetheless received a vote of support from Kim. Senate Democrats also voted twice to attack President Donald Trump’s tariffs; a Canada-focused vote succeeded, but a broader anti-tariff bill failed due to absences.
Kim additionally took a notable vote on two resolutions led by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) to block certain weapons sales to Israel; only 15 senators supported the resolutions, and Kim was one of them.
“I voted for these Joint Resolutions because while I support providing tools critical for Israel’s defense, I do not believe that these systems, which include those that can level entire city blocks and that have been used in incidents with disproportionate civilian casualties, achieve the primary objectives I’ve outlined,” Kim said of his votes. “In fact, their use will make it harder.”
Rule fights
An internal Republican fight that broke out at the beginning of April over whether to allow new parents to vote by proxy in the House featured an unexpected New Jersey protagonist: Rep. Van Drew.
On April 1, Republican leaders tried to pass a procedural motion that included an unrelated provision nullifying a bipartisan attempt to force a vote on proxy voting. Van Drew and eight other Republicans, however, rebelled and sunk the motion, leading the Speaker to cancel all other votes that week.
“We don’t have hundreds of pregnant women” in Congress, Van Drew said in defense of his vote. “Now and then, a woman is pregnant and then gives birth, and wants to spend a little special time with their newborn baby – there’s nothing wrong with that. And she still needs to participate. It’s the 21st century.”
The next week, though, a similar provision was slipped into a different procedural motion, and Van Drew quietly voted for it. Republicans also approved two other rule changes that will prevent Democrats from terminating Trump’s tariffs or investigating Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of Signal, though Van Drew did not cast a vote on the latter.
Absences
Throughout nearly all of April, one New Jersey Democrat was missing in action: Rep. Donald Norcross (D-Camden), who came down with a dangerous gallbladder infection at the beginning of the month and has been hospitalized ever since.
That meant that Norcross was unable to vote on the budget resolution, though he said in a statement that he “would vote ‘no’ a thousand times” on the GOP’s proposal if he could. At one point, Norcross’s absence, combined with two Democratic seats that are vacant thanks to recent deaths, allowed Republicans to succeed on a key procedural vote by a 216-215 margin.
Norcross was transferred out of the intensive care unit last week but remains hospitalized, and even once the congressman is released from the hospital he still may face a lengthy recovery period. That means there are likely to be further weeks of missed votes, which could eventually start to affect Democratic math as they work to block the GOP’s big-ticket legislative agenda.
One other missing vote turned some heads in April: Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly)’s lack of vote on a bill overturning a Joe Biden-era rule capping how much banks can charge in overdraft fees. Gottheimer was present for other votes that day; his office told Politico that he “inadvertently” missed the vote on the overdraft resolution, which passed 217-211, and that he would have voted against it alongside the rest of the Democratic caucus.
Click here for a web version of the vote tracker.
April 2025 votes - House April 2025 votes - Senate