The Trump administration’s U.S. Attorney appointments in New Jersey were once again ruled out of order, Senator Cory Booker wants to cut federal income taxes, and senators passed the first major housing reform bill in years while the House was out of town. Here’s some of what New Jersey’s members of Congress did in Washington this week.
Brann’s stark
It’s been nearly a year since President Donald Trump first installed Alina Habba as New Jersey’s U.S. Attorney, and the turmoil in the U.S. Attorney’s office is far from over.
After Habba was disqualified from the office and submitted her resignation last year, the Department of Justice declined to replace her, instead installing an unusual “triumvirate” of prosecutors who each led different divisions of the office. But in a decision released on Monday, District Judge Matthew Brann ruled that the new arrangement, too, was unlawful under federal appointments law.
Brann’s 130-page ruling is suffused with frustration at the Trump administration’s repeated attempts to evade checks and balances when it comes to U.S. Attorney appointments, and warns that cases could start being dismissed if the impasse continues.
“With all these options remaining, why does the fate of thousands of criminal prosecutions in this District potentially rest on the legitimacy of an unprecedented and byzantine leadership structure?” Brann wrote. “The Government tells us: the President doesn’t like that he cannot simply appoint whomever he wants.”
Brann pre-emptively stayed his own ruling pending appeal to the Third Circuit, though the DOJ has not yet filed notice of such an appeal. The Trump administration could also appeal the Third Circuit’s decision to disqualify Habba up to the Supreme Court, but similarly has not yet done so.
Deductive reasoning
Senator Booker has grand plans for America’s tax code.
Under a new bill Booker introduced on Monday, the standard deduction for joint filers would be raised to $37,500 for single filers and $75,000 for joint filers, effectively exempting those income thresholds from federal income taxes. The bill, the Keep Your Pay Act, would also expand the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit.
Booker’s proposal is likely to be stymied by the GOP-controlled Senate, at least for now, but the senator said he still thinks it’s a policy worth fighting for. (His potential 2028 presidential ambitions serve as an inevitable backdrop to the legislative rollout, too.)
“The tax system – we all know this – is rigged,” Booker said. “It’s rigged against working people and full of things to help people with a lot of money, whether it’s corporations or billionaires, avoid paying taxes. It’s what happens because of the corruption down in Washington that lets the wealthiest and most powerful write our tax code. So let’s unrig it. Let’s make it simple and direct.”
We’re on a ROAD to housing, come on inside
Congress has not exactly been known in recent years for getting bipartisan things done, but the Senate was able to break that trend this week and pass a major new housing bill on an 89-10 vote.
If eventually enacted, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act would curb Wall Street firms’ ability to buy homes, lessen regulations on manufactured houses, and make a number of other policy changes designed to make housing more accessible. Senators Booker and Andy Kim both voted for the bill, and Kim said that he also helped advance it through the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on which he serves.
“At a community event in New Jersey, a young man who just graduated college told me he doesn’t think he will ever be able to afford a house,” Kim said. “Young people in New Jersey deserve so much better from our government. We know two things to be true: one, we don’t have enough housing supply, and two, the housing we do have is far too expensive.”
“This bipartisan legislation will help communities build more homes and make meaningful reforms to ensure fairness in the home appraisal process,” Booker said. “It also strengthens federal programs that help communities recover from disasters and invest in safer, more resilient housing. Additionally, the legislation takes steps to curb large corporate investors from driving up the cost of homes, which makes it harder for working families to realize the dream of homeownership.”
A for attendance
According to a Roll Call analysis of 2025 voting records, 23 House members and two senators had perfect attendance records during roll-call votes. One of them was New Jersey’s Rep. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City), who was present for all 361 non-quorum votes the House took in 2025.
“It’s a privilege to serve the place I’ve always called home,” Menendez said on social media.
New Jersey’s other representatives and senators all had attendance records of at least 95%, with three exceptions. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly) and now-Gov. Mikie Sherrill were both busy running for governor for much of 2025 – Sherrill was only present for 44% of votes up through her departure from the House in November – while Rep. Donald Norcross (D-Camden) spent much of last spring recovering from a near-fatal gallbladder infection.
Can’t wait for state legislators to do 120 of these
President Trump has the State of the Union, Gov. Mikie Sherrill will have the State of the State, and Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark) debuted something new this week: a State of the District address.
Speaking before constituents and elected officials for half an hour on Monday, McIver laid out the state of affairs in her 10th congressional district – which spans Newark, Jersey City, and a number of nearby suburbs – and talked about what she got done during her first full year in Congress.
“We’ve had some big wins for our community,” McIver said. “From $10 million secured for projects our neighborhoods need, to the dollars we have put back in your pockets, to the bills we have introduced to the ones we have passed. But even with those wins, I needed the rock-solid foundation that our district has, because this is not your parents’ Congress, and these times aren’t easy.”
Other Garden State plots
• After years of fielding complaints about helicopter noise in their districts (as well as a fatal 2025 helicopter crash in the Hudson River), Reps. Menendez, McIver, and Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch) are joining some of their New York colleagues to push for the House to take up several helicopter safety measures.
“Last spring’s string of tragedies, including the tragic helicopter crash in Jersey City that killed a family of five and the pilot, highlighted the consequences of inadequate oversight of helicopter safety,” the group of seven representatives wrote. “Any comprehensive helicopter safety legislation should consider our region, and we urge the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to work with our delegation to ensure this vital piece of legislation addresses critical safety issues specific to our region.”
• According to Rep. Chris Smith (R-Manchester)’s office, U.S. Marine Corporal Leo Perlmutter qualified for the Purple Heart after being wounded in Vietnam in 1968, but the medal never arrived. In 2024, Smith began an investigation of the matter, and this week was at last able to award Perlmutter the medal he earned 58 years ago.
“We are so very grateful for what you did,” Smith told Perlmutter, a Lakewood resident, during the ceremony. “The fact that you have received these medals is just further recognition of how much respect and honor we need to afford you for that sacrifice. Thank you so much.”
• Rep. Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon), the Democratic leader of a task force on World Cup security, published an op-ed in the Guardian this week warning that the soccer extravaganza could be marred by a lack of timely funding and by the prospect of aggressive ICE activity.
“None of this has to happen,” Pou wrote. “DHS must release the funding it is sitting on. Congress should hold emergency hearings on ICE. The administration can offer clear assurances that visitors here legally will not be targeted by enforcement actions at games, fan fests, or watch parties.”
