A week ago, a petition to force a vote on releasing files related to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was able to just barely eke out the 218 signatures needed for consideration. Today, the bill passed the House in far more dramatic fashion: a near-unanimous, 427-1 vote.
The vote marks a dramatic turnaround for the Epstein bill, which President Donald Trump had strongly discouraged Republicans from supporting before abruptly reversing course over the weekend. 11 of New Jersey’s 12 House members voted for the bill today; the twelfth, Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill, wasn’t present for the vote but said she would have supported it had she been there.
Shortly after the House vote, the Senate agreed by unanimous consent to approve the bill without a roll-call vote, sending it to Trump’s desk.
The bill’s supporters included Reps. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield), Chris Smith (R-Manchester), and Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis), none of whom had signed the discharge petition that caused today’s vote in the first place. Van Drew, though, was a sponsor of the underlying bill, and said his decision not to sign the petition stemmed from his desire to see the bill go through the standard committee process.
“I always wanted this done, I always wanted this information released,” Van Drew said. “But I would have rather seen it go through the proper channels, the proper way. That’s what I didn’t love about the discharge petition.”
Smith said his top priority was to “make sure the victims are protected,” which similarly made him hesitant to sign the petition. He noted that a law he authored, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, has been used to convict thousands of sex traffickers, among them Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
But New Jersey Democrats, all of whom signed the petition, questioned why Republicans were so eager to support the bill after blocking it from coming up for a vote for months.
“The American people want transparency, the survivors want transparency,” Rep. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City) said. “I’m glad to see Republicans support us in that endeavor. I don’t know why they fought it so hard, why they refused to swear [Arizona Rep. Adelita Grijalva] in. But we’re here, this is the right vote and the right thing for the American people.”
When the discharge petition first began its path to 218 signatures, it seemed like it might ultimately be a moot effort, since the bill would likely die on the Senate floor or on Trump’s desk. But that, too, changed rapidly in recent days, with Senate leaders coming out in support of passing the bill unanimously and Trump indicating he’d sign it if it reaches him.
This story was updated at 5:31 p.m. after the Senate passed the bill via unanimous consent.
