The snow is softly falling on Washington, D.C. after a relatively productive week that saw a government shutdown averted, a major deal on tax reform reached, and a New Jerseyan’s nomination to the federal circuit court approved in committee.
Many of New Jersey’s 14 members of Congress have already skipped town and headed back to the Garden State, where the snow is coming down even harder. Here’s some of what they did in Washington this week.
If your Congress experiences three near-shutdowns in four months, seek medical help immediately
Congress was backed into a corner once again this week, passing another continuing resolution (a stopgap government funding bill) to avoid a partial government shutdown which would have begun at midnight tonight. It’s the third temporary funding bill that Congress has had to pass since the fiscal year began on October 1.
Like both previous CRs, 13 of New Jersey’s 14 members of Congress voted for the bill, though not without some grumbling that Congress can’t keep limping along this way.
“Obviously, it’s not necessarily the best situation to go through, but it’s the best that we can do right now,” Rep. Donald Payne Jr. (D-Newark) said. “It’s unfortunate, but it’s either that or a government shutdown, and that’s just not feasible in this day and age.”
The lone “no” vote – once again – was Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis), who said he has great respect for House Speaker Mike Johnson but that he wanted to see at least some spending cuts included in the bill.
“I’m just not voting for the same old, same old,” Van Drew said. “This is continuing the Pelosi budget. It’s not the Speaker’s fault, and it’s better than closing down government, but it’s something I don’t want to be a part of.”
Thanks to the CR, the new deadline for funding the government will be March 1 or March 8, depending on the department. Given that Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have announced a long-term funding deal, there can perhaps be more room for optimism this time that Congress won’t keep on having to kick the can down the road.
Tax-i Driver
Top committee leaders in the House and Senate officially unveiled a major bipartisan deal on tax reform this week, proposing an expanded Child Tax Credit and a reinstatement of some expired business benefits. The bill is already moving fast, coming up for a markup today in the House Ways and Means Committee.
Initial reactions to the bill from New Jersey’s members of Congress seem to be positive, but cautiously so. Reps. Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson) and Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) both praised the bill but noted its lack of any provisions addressing the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction cap, which limits the amount that higher-earning New Jerseyans can deduct from their taxes.
“As this legislation is finalized, I will also make clear that any tax bill should include a repeal of the SALT deduction cap that has had a devastating impact on New Jersey families,” Sherrill said in a statement.
In today’s Ways and Means Committee hearing, Pascrell proposed an amendment that would raise the cap substantially; the amendment failed thanks to unanimous Republican opposition, while the overall bill was approved on a wide bipartisan margin.
“You raised taxes in 2017 on the wrong people,” Pascrell said. “What I’m saying is, let’s look at the deduction [cap] – which we put at $10,000 – let’s raise it to $60,000, and $120,000 for joint returns. I think that would be fair, so that the federal government is participating in certain expenses in that particular state, which would ease the tax burden.”
Senator Cory Booker, meanwhile, said that he’s excited about the CTC expansion included in the bill but wants the credit to be fully restored to the levels it reached in 2021 under the American Rescue Plan.
“This bipartisan proposal is a step towards a tax code that better reflects our values – for every dollar spent on tax cuts to businesses, we are putting an equal amount back into the pockets of families with kids and extending lifelines for those who need it the most,” Booker said. “We must make a lasting commitment to continue our work until we reinstate the full expanded Child Tax Credit that Democrats passed in 2021 and ensure that no child grows up in poverty.”
The Art of Adeel
New Jerseyan Adeel Mangi is one Senate vote away from becoming a judge on the United States Third Circuit Court of Appeals after being approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, but his path through the committee process has been a charged one.
At both an initial December hearing and yesterday’s committee vote, Republicans questioned Mangi, who would be the first Muslim American to serve on a federal appeals court, over his involvement with a controversial organization at Rutgers University and his views on terrorism and antisemitism. One Republican, Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, went so far as to say that Jewish people might feel uncomfortable if Mangi was the judge in their case.
Democrats on the committee strongly defended Mangi from the Republican broadsides, noting that his position at the Rutgers organization was a very limited one and implying that Mangi’s religious background was the impetus for the rhetoric against him.
“To me, this smacks of an era I thought was passed, which is McCarthyism; guilt by association,” said Booker, who serves on the Judiciary Committee. “Clearly, as the record states, this person condemns all the things that we share and condemn. His career speaks to the values we hold dear.”
Mangi was ultimately cleared by the committee on a party line 11-10 vote; he’ll now head to the full Senate for confirmation, though it may take a while before that vote happens.
TANF lines
Shortly after approving the CR yesterday, the House took up two controversial pregnancy-related bills: one to require colleges to inform pregnant students of their rights, and another to nullify a Biden Administration rule that prevents Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds from going towards anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers.
Republicans framed the two bills as common-sense measures to protect pregnant women, and the entire Republican caucus voted for both bills – including swing-district Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield), for whom abortion is likely to be a top issue this year.
“Americans agree. The new Marist national poll released yesterday found that 83 percent of all Americans, including 75 percent of Democrats, support – I say again support – pregnancy resource centers,” Rep. Chris Smith (R-Manchester) said in remarks delivered at today’s March for Life. “They, like all of us in this great human rights movement, stand with every woman and for every child.”
Democrats, though, lambasted the bills as anti-abortion Trojan horses. Sherrill, a mother of four who had two of her kids while in law school, said that the latter bill would redirect money away from TANF’s welfare programs for children, which she argued was a betrayal of the GOP’s supposedly “pro-life” mission.
“You’re sending [women] to this center to try to limit their options, encouraging them to go forward with their pregnancy – but then stripping money away from the very programs that might help her successfully raise her child if she doesn’t have access to a lot of funding,” she said. “It’s really, in my mind, a cynical, partisan ploy, and not good for women.”
Cargo manifest destiny
Two New Jersey House members were also able to get bills of their own passed yesterday; both bills had previously passed the Senate, so there’s a strong chance they become law.
One bill, sponsored by Van Drew, would allow the victims and families of victims of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which had 190 American fatalities, to access the trial of one of the terrorists involved in the attack. The bill passed 413-7, and Van Drew indicated President Joe Biden is likely to sign it.
“This allows – they’re scattered all across the country – all of the survivors and families to actually be able to watch the trial and what’s going on,” Van Drew said. “Not the entire public, but just these people.”
Pascrell, meanwhile, was the co-sponsor of a bill that requires U.S. Customs and Border Protection to remove private data like Social Security numbers and passport details from cargo manifests before they’re publicly released. The House approved the bill on a voice vote.
“In recent years, manifest data has been mistakenly exposed, enabling identity theft, credit card fraud, and unwanted solicitations,” Pascrell said in a statement. “We must make sure information like names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and passport numbers can be removed from cargo manifests before they are disclosed. Our plan will protect Americans from having their personal information compromised.”
Other Garden State plots
• On Tuesday, Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) hosted a press conference to push for increased regulations on artificial intelligence (AI) alongside a teenage constituent in his hometown who blew the whistle on AI pornography at her high school. Kean has introduced a bill to require AI content to be clearly labeled as such, and signed onto a colleague’s bill to prohibit the sharing of nonconsensual AI images.
“As a father, I have been deeply disturbed by how effortlessly this technology can be used in an explicit manner and minors can easily be the victims,” Kean said. “It’s unimaginable for any parent to think that their daughter can turn into school, a place meant to be a safe space, and have to act as if these things are normal. My hope has been to find common-sense solutions to prevent these acts from ever happening again.”
• A delegation of New Jersey mayors were in Washington this week for the United States Conference of Mayors, among them Elizabeth Mayor Chris Bollwage, Edison Mayor Sam Joshi, Hamilton Mayor Jeff Martin, East Orange Mayor Ted Green, Piscataway Mayor Brian Wahler, Metuchen Mayor Jonathan Busch, and Hope Township Mayor Timothy McDonough. Also attending the conference was Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Wyckoff), who spoke on bipartisanship with Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-New York).
“It was an honor to join Congressman Molinaro and incredible mayors from Jersey and across our nation,” Gottheimer said in a statement. “They are on the frontline every day, solving problems facing our communities. We have to stop this cycle of extremism, partisanship, and insanity where people are only willing to compromise if they receive one hundred percent of what they’re asking for. There’s so much we can agree on. We need real commonsense solutions.”