With a newly installed Speaker taking the reins of the House, Congress was able to get back to dealing with consequential legislation in November, passing government funding bills, haggling over aid to Israel, and dealing with censure and expulsion efforts against its own members.
Click here for a web version of the New Jersey Globe’s November 2023 vote tracker, with links to the bills and votes in question, or scroll to the bottom of this article for a PDF version.
The most important thing that Congress accomplished was keeping itself open; with a funding deadline on November 17, the House and Senate passed a continuing resolution that will fund the government at current levels through late January or early February, depending on the department.
Thirteen of New Jersey’s 14 representatives and senators voted for the stopgap bill, including every Democrat and two Republicans. The lone exception was Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis), who said he’d have supported the bill “if there was even a 1% cut” in spending – though if the bill had included that, it would have likely lost most of the Democratic support it needed to pass.
For every other New Jerseyan in Congress, the prospect of pushing through another temporary funding bill wasn’t thrilling, but it was better than shutting down the government.
“It’s not ideal, but look, I’m somebody that worked as a national security official through multiple shutdowns before,” Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown) said. “I’ve been in that situation before, where I wasn’t getting paid but had to show up to work. We’ve got to be able to keep our government going.”
As for longer-term funding, the House passed two more appropriations bills – funding the Interior Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, and Congress itself – on largely party-line votes. New Jersey Democrats were united in opposition to the conservative bills, which stand no chance of passing the Senate as-is.
Several other appropriations bills failed to come up for a vote at all due to lack of support from within the Republican caucus. One of those scuttled bills was for the Transportation and Housing and Urban Development Departments and would have drastically cut funding for Amtrak, something that New Jersey House members of both parties say they’re working to prevent.
Over in the Senate, three of its 12 required appropriations bills in November via a “minibus” package covering the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development. The vote on the package was overwhelmingly bipartisan, and both Senators Cory Booker and Bob Menendez voted in favor.
Another major flashpoint in Congress last month was aid for Israel following the October 7 Hamas attack. Both parties broadly agree that the United States should approve new funds for Israel, but have struggled to come together on a proposal to do so.
New House Speaker Mike Johnson pushed through a bill on November 2 that provides $14.3 billion to Israel but cuts an equivalent amount from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)’s enforcement initiatives. The bill caught pro-Israel Democrats in a bind, since they wanted to aid Israel but had no interest in shivving the IRS; ultimately, most New Jersey Democrats voted against the bill, but Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Wyckoff) stuck with it.
“While I do not support the Speaker’s approach to this legislation, we must ensure that Israel has the resources to defeat Hamas and other terrorists, and get every hostage home, including all Americans,” Gottheimer said. “The symbol to the world of voting no would have done more damage. I look forward to voting for the Senate’s bipartisan bill.”
The House has also voted on a large number of resolutions and bills asserting the United States’s support for Israel, opposing Hamas, and putting sanctions on Iran, some of which revealed internal divisions within the House Democratic caucus.
New Jersey Democrats were unanimous in affirming Israel’s right to exist and decrying Hamas’s attack, but some progressive Democrats started balking when it came to censuring college students or freezing Iranian assets. In one particularly notable instance, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing) was one of just 23 representatives to vote against a resolution condemning support for Hamas on college campuses.
Finally, the House took action against two of its own members: two censure efforts against Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) for her anti-Israel comments and an expulsion effort against Rep. George Santos (R-New York) for his alleged crimes and misdeeds.
An initial censure resolution against Tlaib was tabled on November 1, but after she made new controversial remarks a few days later, a new resolution was put for a vote and succeeded. Twenty-two Democratic House members – among them Gottheimer – voted for the resolution; Rep. Donald Norcross (D-Camden) voted “present,” while every other New Jersey Democrat voted no.
“Despite my objection to Rep. Tlaib’s offensive and divisive rhetoric, I believe it is inappropriate to take this action against a Member for exercising their right to free speech, even if we find their words to be objectionable,” Rep. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City) said.
As for Santos, he survived the first expulsion effort against him thanks to a large number of Democrats – among them Menendez and Norcross – either voting “no” or “present.” Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) joined New Jersey’s other seven House Democrats in support of booting Santos, but there wasn’t nearly enough support to reach the two-thirds threshold necessary to expel a House member.
(Santos, of course, went on to be expelled anyways after a scathing House Ethics Committee report was released, but that second vote happened in December.)
Click here for a web version of the vote tracker.