Who Had Their Travel Costs Covered? Who Owes On Credit Cards?

By: Benjamin J. Hulac, Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON — Cory Booker received an advance worth more than $300,000 for “Stand,” his book released in March that is anchored by his record-setting 25-hour, 5-minute filibuster last year on the Senate floor.

As she ran for governor in 2025, Mikie Sherrill, a Democratic congresswoman at the time, took dozens of trips across the country to raise money, sit for interviews and build support for her race. In his own run for the governorship, Democratic congressman Josh Gottheimer made 11 such campaign trips, records show.

Rep. Herb Conway (D-3rd) owns stakes in two medical research businesses, performs medical research and works part-time as a doctor to retain his medical license. And Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-7th) holds positions in a family business, a foundation run by his dynastic political family and an apartment complex in Robbinsville.

Under federal law, members of Congress are required to disclose their personal finances, including periodic investment transactions, in annual reports made public. The deadline for 2025 annual disclosure reports for both chambers was Thursday, though House and Senate members often request extensions.

Student loans

These documents, filed with the House clerk’s office and the Senate Office of Public Records, show information including stock and bond transactions; financial liabilities like mortgages and credit-card debt; spousal income; and gifts.

The records provide rare glimpses into the personal lives of lawmakers.

Rising cost of living worries residents — and BookerNoted in the filings, for instance, are the pension plans of New Jersey lawmakers who came to Washington from the state Legislature, including Reps. Donald Norcross (D-1st), Jeff Van Drew (R-2nd), Conaway, Rep. Nellie Pou (D-9th) and retiring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-12th).

Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-10th), at 40 years old the youngest New Jersey member in the House, is carrying $100,000 to $250,000 in debt from a student loan, the congresswoman’s filing shows.

Lawmakers are bound to report the value of financial assets and liabilities, as well as income, in ranges rather than precise figures. That policy makes it effectively impossible to pin down their net worth.

Swing in the West

Booker, whose disclosure record was filed on deadline day at 9:46 p.m., reported that his book advance for “Stand,” for St. Martin’s Publishing in New York City, is worth $365,500. Booker wrote another book, “United,” in 2015, in his early Senate days.

The Democratic senator, who is running for a fourth term in November, had more than $23 million in cash on hand in his campaign account, according to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Booker’s record-breaking Senate plea: Meet this ‘moral moment’Booker, who has not ruled out running for the White House in 2028, has been traveling the country to raise money for Democratic candidates.

“I’m obsessed with this primary, and obviously I haven’t closed the door to ’28,” Booker said in an interview at The New Mexican’s office last week in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Booker ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, before withdrawing that January.

That New Mexico stop was part of a broader swing in the American West, including in Colorado and Utah.

Booker’s attention-grabbing marathon speech, a protest that surpassed 25 hours and broke the record set by South Carolina senator and arch-segregationist Strom Thurmond, drew national attention.

“This is a moral moment in America. This is going to define our country for years and years to come,” Booker said in the speech, trying to whip support for a public pushback against the Trump administration.

Seeing patients

Sherrill’s annual disclosure, filed after she won the governorship, shows she hopscotched around the nation on 36 occasions as she ran for her current job: New Jersey governor.

All but two of these trips were covered by her campaign. The state Democratic Party paid for lodging at a municipal government convention in Atlantic City. The television network formerly known as MSNBC paid for her trip to appear on its “Morning Joe” program.

Congress advances limits on stock trading, stops short of total banGottheimer and Kean are the two members of the New Jersey delegation with active financial portfolios. Both say they do not personally manage their investments and rely instead on outside management to set day-to-day strategy.

Gottheimer and Kean, along with Van Drew and Rep. Chris Smith (R-4th), in July voted for legislation that would limit stock trading by members of Congress, though it stops short of a bans.

Conaway, a first-term Democrat who won the seat that Sen. Andy Kim left when he ran for the Senate in 2024, owns stakes in two New Jersey-based medical research companies.

“He is researcher for clinical medical trials, and does this without pay,” Chris Garcia, a spokesman for Conaway, told NJ Spotlight News by email when asked about the nature of these companies.

A medical doctor, Conway sees patients as his congressional schedule allows, a commitment that ranges between 10 and 20 hours a week, Garcia said. The congressman “does practice medicine to ensure he can keep his medical license, which is allowed by the House rules.”