Citing health care costs, NJ Democrats vote no on ending government shutdown

By Benjamin J. Hulac, Washington Correspondent

Federal offices and programs closed for weeks will soon reopen and hundreds of thousands of federal workers who have gone without pay for longer than a month will receive backpay after Congress reached a deal to fund the U.S. government.

The House voted Wednesday evening, 222-209, passing Republican legislation the Senate rewrote to fund day-to-day operations for federal agencies and workers.

“Paychecks!” a pair of House Republicans shouted as they left the chamber after the vote passed. “Paychecks are on the way!”

That vote followed action in the Senate over the weekend, when a breakthrough deal emerged, before a 60-40 vote Monday night in that chamber to pass the bill.

Democrats in the New Jersey congressional delegation opposed the legislation, saying Congress should take up legislation to lower health care costs, the central argument Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill made during the shutdown. The state’s three Republicans voted for the legislation.

Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim voted against the bill in the Senate on Monday. On Wednesday in the House, Reps. Donald Norcross (D-1st), Herb Conaway (D-3rd), Josh Gottheimer (D-5th), Frank Pallone (D-6th), Rob Menendez (D-8th), Nellie Pou (D-9th), LaMonica McIver (D-10th) and Mikie Sherrill (D-11th) all voted no.

Republican congressmen Jeff Van Drew (R-2nd), Chris Smith (R-4th) and Tom Kean Jr. (R-7th) voted for it. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman did not vote Wednesday because she did not travel due to a pinched nerve from a herniated disc, according to her office.

“I never wanted the government to shut down, because we know the consequences of it,” Rep. Rob Menendez (D-8th) said in an interview Wednesday with NJ Spotlight News off the House floor. “At the end of the day it was always about healthcare.”

In passing the bill, Congress ended the longest federal shutdown in U.S. history, a 43-day stretch the Trump administration used as justification to lay off thousands of federal workers and toy with federal funding for projects like the Gateway Program, an extensive transportation project linking New Jersey and New York.

Until this funding lapse, the longest shutdown in U.S. history came during President Donald Trump’s first term, when, in late 2018 and 2019, the government lurched into a 35-day shutdown.

President Donald Trump signed the bill Wednesday night.

Though federal workers are guaranteed backpay — under a law Congress passed in response to the 2018-2019 shutdown — the Trump administration threatened to withhold pay for federal workers during the shutdown, an act that would be against the law.

At its core, the legislation that cleared Wednesday is a short-term bill to fund the government, except for a few Cabinet departments, at current spending levels through Jan. 30. At that point, Congress will have to write and pass new legislation to prevent another shutdown of some federal agencies and programs.

Federal workers struggled

During the recent shutdown, federal workers have struggled financially, including Transportation Security Administration workers at Newark Liberty International Airport, who were the recipients of an emergency food distribution.

Geddes Scott, president of the American Federation of Government Employees NY/NJ VA Council 246, a labor union that represents about 4,500 employees within the Veterans Administration across New York and New Jersey, told NJ Spotlight News in late October that the shutdown was “scarring the federal workforce,” adding that the present work conditions are like “being starved for air.”

Nationally, public lands and national historic sites, like the Thomas Edison National Historical Park in West Orange, have been gated off during the shutdown.

The new funding law will reopen those sites, bring researchers back to work and pay air traffic controllers during the busy upcoming holiday period. It will also fund tasks the U.S. government carries out that don’t get much notice, from food safety research and inspections of chemical plants, to injecting cash into safety-net programs like payments for public housing, Head Start programs and monthly benefits under the Women, Infants, and Children program.

The fight over health care

The majority of Democratic lawmakers in Congress had pushed to use their leverage in the Senate, where Republicans needed some Democrats to vote with them, for Congress to pass a one-year extension to expiring federal tax credits for people who receive health insurance through the 2010 health law known as Obamacare.

When those credits run out at the end of the year, premiums will increase.

“What’s going to happen? More and more people have no health insurance. That’s the bottom line. They will not have health insurance,” Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6th), the top-ranking Democrat on the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees health policy, said on the House floor Wednesday night. “And the Republicans don’t seem to care. But I want you to know the Democrats care and we’ll continue to fight for you.”

Menendez, also a member of Energy and Commerce, said the expiring tax credits provided a specific point of negotiation for Democrats in both chambers.

“That is a very specific thing to point to and say, ‘If you want our votes in the Senate, then you need to extend these tax credits so millions of Americans have a chance at affordable healthcare,’” Menendez said. “That was the line that we drew in the sand.”

Rep. Nellie Pou (D-9th), in an interview with NJ Spotlight News on Wednesday night, said she visited several locations the shutdown affected – a food pantry, a WIC center and to see air traffic controllers.

“The health premiums are one of the things that I heard the most,” Pou said, adding that average citizens seem to be aware insurance costs will increase in the new year. “It’s definitely on their radar.”

Editor’s note: Here’s how New Jersey’s congressional delegation voted on the bill.

Sen. Cory Booker (D)
No

Sen. Andy Kim (D)
No

Rep. Donald Norcross (D-1st)
No

Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-2nd)
Yes

Rep. Herb Conaway (D-3rd)
No

Rep. Chris Smith (R-4th)
Yes

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-5th)
No

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6th)
No

Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-7th)
Yes

Rep. Rob Menendez (D-8th)
No

Rep. Nellie Pou (D-9th)
No

Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-10th)
No

Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-11th)
No

Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-12th)
No vote