February 2024 was the month that Congress finally started to accomplish a few of its long-term priorities: the Senate passed a major foreign aid bill after months of negotiations, while the House impeached the Secretary of Homeland Security (after an initial failed attempt).
In both cases, it’s very much an open question whether the other chamber will follow through on what one chamber began – but at least it’s something.
Click here for a web version of the New Jersey Globe’s February 2024 vote tracker, with links to the bills and votes in question, or scroll to the bottom of this article for a PDF version.
Government funding
First things first: the government, once again, has been prevented from shutting down. The House and Senate both passed yet another stopgap funding measure yesterday, pushing funding deadlines back to March 8 for some departments and March 22 for others; the original deadline was September 30, but Congress has continually kicked the can down the road since then.
Just as with every previous stopgap funding bill, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) voted no; he’s said in the past that he’d only be comfortable supporting such bills if they include some reductions in spending. The other 13 New Jersey senators and House members all voted for the bill.
“Today for the 5th time this Congress, I voted to prevent a careless and harmful government shutdown,” Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown) opined on Twitter. “The Republican majority continues to prove they are not interested in or capable of responsible governance. I can’t wait until we have a Speaker Hakeem Jeffries next year.”
It’s at least conceivable that this will be the last time that this Congress has to go through this rigmarole, since congressional leaders have officially struck a deal on appropriations bills that fund the government long-term. The showdown over whether those bills can in fact pass both chambers will come next month.
Foreign aid
For months, a bipartisan set of negotiators in the Senate had worked on a proposal that would provide tens of billions in foreign aid for Ukraine and Israel while also changing U.S. immigration and border policies. That proposal was finally released early this month – and then immediately nixed by most of the Republican caucus as well as a few Democrats, one of whom was New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez.
“Accepting this deal as written would be an outright betrayal to the communities we have sworn an oath to protect and represent,” Menendez said in a blistering statement. “If these changes were being considered under Trump, Democrats would be in outrage, but because we want to win an election Latinos and immigrants now find themselves on the altar of sacrifice.”
When the bill came up for its first procedural vote, Menendez was among the 50 senators who voted to kill it; New Jersey’s other senator, Cory Booker, voted in favor of the procedural vote but noted that he remained skeptical of some of the policy changes the bill contained.
Shortly after that bill failed, the Senate instead took up a different, foreign-aid-only bill, and it was much more successful. With Booker and Menendez both voting yes, the $95 billion bill passed the Senate 70-29 on February 13.
Now the question is whether the more conservative House Republican caucus will take up the bill; many Republicans have expressed substantial skepticism about funding for Ukraine, and House Speaker Mike Johnson has specifically criticized the Senate’s bill.
House GOP leaders tried to pass their own bill this month providing aid for Israel alone, but it failed 250-180 (it needed two-thirds of the vote to pass). New Jersey’s House members were split: Reps. Kim, Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson), Donald Payne Jr. (D-Newark), Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing) voted against it, while the state’s other four Democrats and three Republicans supported it.
Mayorkas impeachment
Ever since they took control of the House at the beginning of last year, Republicans have been talking up the idea of impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whom they claim has been derelict in his duties to secure the U.S. border.
On February 6, they finally put articles of impeachment on the House floor – and they failed 214-216, thanks to three Republican no votes and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s absence for cancer treatment. But a week later, with Scalise back in Washington, Republicans tried again, and this time succeeded 214-213.
New Jersey’s 12 House members didn’t cause much drama, with all nine Democrats opposing the impeachment articles both times and all three Republicans supporting them. Now the effort heads to the Democratic-controlled Senate, where Democrats don’t sound especially interested in taking it up; the articles could be dismissed on a simple majority vote.
“Unfortunately, the United States Senate is going to make [the impeachment] symbolic, by definitely not doing anything with it,” Van Drew, an outspoken impeachment proponent, said on the right-wing channel Newsmax. “But it was still very important to do. Actions have consequences, and the actions of this man … are horrendous.”
Other votes
An effort co-sponsored by Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) to provide State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction cap relief was scuttled this month on a procedural vote; if enacted, the bill would have raised the SALT cap on married filers from $10,000 to $20,000.
Republican leaders had linked the bill with a separate resolution condemning the Biden administration, which for obvious reasons most House Democrats did not support. A motion to begin discussion on both bills failed 195-225; all New Jersey Democrats voted against the motion except for Reps. Sherrill and Josh Gottheimer (D-Wyckoff), who didn’t cast a vote at all.
The House did pass a few other bills, including one repealing some restrictions on natural gas imports and exports (New Jersey Republicans voted yes while Democrats voted no) and another led by Rep. Chris Smith (R-Manchester) reauthorizing the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (all 12 New Jerseyans voted yes).
In the Senate, an effort by Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) to vote on a bill disapproving of arms sales to Turkey was sunk on a broad 13-79 vote – but Menendez was one of the 13 senators who voted for Paul’s motion.
Click here for a web version of the vote tracker.