New Jersey’s three new House members on their goals for 2025 - New Jersey Globe (original) (raw)

The 119th Congress has begun – and for two New Jersey politicians, that means the beginning of a congressional career that neither likely thought was possible just a couple of years ago.

Reps. Herb Conaway (D-Delran) and Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon) were both sworn into their first House terms today, the culmination of an unusual election cycle that saw the two former state legislators win the seats previously held by Senator Andy Kim and the late Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson). Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark) has already been in the House for a couple of months after winning a special election to replace the late Rep. Donald Payne Jr. (D-Newark), but she, too, now gets to begin her first proper House term.

“It’s a huge honor,” Pou said. “I’m truly, truly happy. But I also know that this is a huge responsibility, and one I take very seriously.”

The state’s three new members, all Democrats, are taking office at a time when Republicans are on the rise in Washington. Republicans held onto control of the House and flipped the Senate and the presidency, though as today’s hectic House Speaker vote proved, they may not always be able to execute their agenda without a hitch.

Pou, Conaway, and McIver all said that they hope they’ll be able to work with the Republican majority on less-controversial issues – bipartisan legislating will likely be a necessity for many of Congress’s day-to-day tasks – though they’re not wildly optimistic.

“Democrats are dedicated to trying to deliver for the people that we serve, and you would think that Republicans feel the same way,” McIver said. “Many of these issues are not Republican or Democrat issues; issues of affordability are important to Republican voters and Democratic voters. We hope that they will be working hard to address some of these things, but it doesn’t seem to be that way with our Republican colleagues.”

“I’m hopeful, as I always am, for the future,” Conaway said. “There’s a lot of work to do; the American people have a number of needs. We, on the Democratic side, are going to advance a vision for the future; the Republicans will advance one, and we’ll hopefully find some common ground on the things we agree on and we’ll be able to get that done.”

Pou in particular faces a complex task in navigating the 119th Congress, since her Paterson-based seat is one of a handful of Trump-won districts to be represented by a Democrat in Congress. She said that she hopes to find compromise wherever possible – and that she doesn’t see a lot of utility in resisting whatever Republicans try to do.

“I would never say that resistance is the way to govern, ever,” she said. “It’s important for us to make sure that we’re working on mutual issues if at all possible… As a longtime sitting member of the legislature, my way of dealing with things was always working with the other side of the aisle, and I was able to develop relationships with many of my [Republican] colleagues.”

Pou, 68, and Conaway, 61, had both served for more than 25 years in the New Jersey State Legislature before they each unexpectedly got the chance to run for Congress this year; for Conaway, it was a chance at vindication after he lost a prior campaign for the same Burlington County-based seat in 2004. McIver, 38, was previously the president of the Newark City Council.

Pou and Conaway both made some history today as New Jersey’s first Latina congresswoman and South Jersey’s first Black congressman, respectively. Alongside Reps. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing), Pou and McIver also bring the number of women serving in the delegation to four, twice as many as had ever served simultaneously before.

Asked what issue they’d like Congress to prioritize above all else, the three members said their constituents are crying out for legislation making their everyday lives more affordable. For Conaway and Pou, both of whom represent predominantly suburban districts, that means tackling the State and Local Tax deduction cap – which limits the amount that taxpayers in high-tax states can deduct and which is set to expire at the end of this year – first and foremost.

“For New Jersey and our delegation, and up and down the East Coast and the West Coast, we want to see the SALT deduction restored,” Conaway said. “I would expect to be able to work in a bipartisan way to get that fixed. It’s a rather discrete issue, and let’s hope that we can work to get that SALT deduction restored.”

McIver, meanwhile, said that the high cost of housing as a huge issue in her district, a majority-Black, predominantly urban Newark-based seat where 59% of all households rent their homes according to one analysis.

“Folks say, ‘Hey, rent is high as hell. I can’t live. I’m paying more than 70% of my income just to pay rent. That leaves me with just 30% to buy groceries and afford a prescription, and don’t even mention child care,’” McIver said, adding that Congress could do more to sell federal land, work with developers, and empower the Department of Housing and Urban Development in order to increase affordable housing development.

McIver is already a member of the Homeland Security and Small Business Committees, but she said she’d like to expand her portfolio to include the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee as well; those assignments likely won’t be given out until sometime next week. (Because she took office a few months ago, McIver has seniority over the rest of the freshman class – she’s ranked #372 out of 434 – which could give her a boost in committee pickings.)

Pou said she’s hoping to land on the exclusive Financial Services Committee, where she’d be able to continue the work she did as chair of the New Jersey State Senate’s Commerce Committee, and that her ultimate goal is to get a seat on the Appropriations Committee. And Conaway said he’d be “pleased” to serve wherever he’s assigned, but singled out armed services and veterans’ affairs as two areas he’s especially interested in; the congressman is a U.S. Air Force veteran and represents the massive Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.

Pou’s, Conaway’s, and McIver’s mere presence in Washington is something of a victory for New Jersey, which hasn’t had a complete congressional delegation since April, when Payne died following a heart attack. (Arguably, that streak could be pushed back even further to September 2023, when Senator Bob Menendez was indicted on corruption charges and took a big step away from his Senate duties.)

But the three members hope to build out offices and legacies that go beyond just filling a seat.

“I’ll be holding strong to the ethical foundations that have carried me thus far: compromise where we need to in order to make progress, but never straying from the ethical foundation,” Conaway said. “Jimmy Carter said, when a storm comes, you have to make sure you hold fast to your ethics and your principles – those are the stays you need to weather the storm.”

“I got into public politics because I wanted to deliver for people,” McIver said. “The worst thing is for me to walk into my communities and people say, ‘What are you doing for us? What’s happening? We don’t feel anything. We don’t understand what’s going on.’ That’s my biggest fear, and the biggest disappointment for me. I just want to be able to deliver for folks, and so I’m really excited about doing that from this level.”