Congress

Josh Gottheimer promised an abortion protection bill. Eight months later, he hasn’t moved it.

Published

2 years ago

December 23, 2024

In April, Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer called a press conference in front of a Planned Parenthood office in northern New Jersey to announce new legislation designed to protect women.

Gottheimer, who was widely known to be planning a run for governor, said the bill was in response to a push by anti-abortion groups to use the 151-year-old Comstock Act to ban the mailing of mifepristone — a drug used to induce abortions and treat miscarriages.

“Let’s be clear: without access to safe and legal reproductive health care, women will die,” Gottheimer said at the time.

But eight months later, the congressmember, who formally launched his gubernatorial campaign last month, has still not introduced the legislation, the Protecting Personal, Private Medical Decisions Act. And the draft that his office provided to Blue Light News is a non-binding resolution — an expression of sentiment that has no force of law.

Gottheimer’s office told Blue Light News that the delay is due to the complexity of the court fights around abortion access.

“Josh has been working closely with legislative counsel on technical aspects of this legislation, and plans to introduce it when it’s fully ready,” Gottheimer Communications Director Zachary Florman said in a statement.

The fact that Gottheimer has yet to introduce the bill after publicly saying he has comes amid an intensifying gubernatorial race with six declared Democrats. He’s been a leader of moderates in Washington and, while it will be an advantage in a general election for governor, he’s coming up against more liberal Democrats and will need to appeal to a more progressive voting bloc.

It also comes as Gottheimer grapples with the fallout of a viral scandal over his publishing a fake screenshot purporting to be his Spotify “Wrapped” for 2024 — a summary of his most-listened to songs. His fabricated “Wrapped” showed his top five songs as hits from Bruce Springsteen. But his admission that it was faked led to widespread mockery.

Gottheimer — one of Congress’ most active stock traders — also promised in 2022 to put his assets in a blind trust. That has yet to happen, though Gottheimer’s office said they long ago submitted blind trust proposals to the House Ethics Committee, which they said has repeatedly delayed approving it.

Gottheimer touted his “introduction” of the abortion-related bill several times in fundraising emails and referred to his “new legislation to stand up for a woman’s right to choose — including protecting access” while promoting his upcoming appearances on social media.

“When I first ran for Congress, I ran against an anti-choice extremist with a promise to always defend reproductive freedom,” a Gottheimer gubernatorial campaign fundraising email from this month said. “I’ve introduced legislation like the Protecting Personal, Private Medical Decisions Act to condemn restrictions on reproductive health care.”

In a September voter guide on NJ Spotlight News, Gottheimer wrote: “I have introduced two pieces of legislation, the ‘Freedom to Decide Act’ and the ‘Protecting Personal, Private Medical Decisions Act,’ both of which protect access to Mifepristone and support telemedicine across state lines, so doctors can prescribe it wherever women are in need of care.”

The April 9 press conference in Hackensack attracted attention across the region, earning him coverage on most New York City television news stations. That helped him burnish his pro-abortion rights bona fides ahead of his expected run in the Democratic primary for governor.

“Josh has also helped introduce other legislation protecting Mifepristone, including the Freedom to Decide Act,” Florman said. “Because of what’s on the line for women’s health care, and the ongoing court battles, we want to make sure we get all choice-related legislation exactly right. We can never do enough to protect reproductive freedom, and Josh has a long record of standing with pro-choice groups to take on the radical right in defense of reproductive freedom.”

The “Freedom to Decide Act” — a concurrent resolution that would also be non-binding — was introduced by Gottheimer along with two other members on April 13.

Gottheimer does have a long record on other abortion issues, including a 2023 campaign to shut down anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy centers” that he alleges pose as legitimate health care centers. And he has co-sponsored dozens of bills and resolutions aimed at protecting or expanding access to abortion and reproductive care since taking office.

The push to protect mifepristone likely lost some urgency following the Supreme Court’s June decision to throw out a lawsuit seeking to roll back access to the drug, though the decision was procedural and did not address the merits of the case. Some pro-abortion rights advocates have expressed concerns that attempting to repeal parts of the Comstock Act could raise its profile and undermine the Biden administration’s legal argument that it’s unenforceable.

A spokesperson Planned Parenthood New Jersey did not respond to a phone call seeking comment.

Congress

Capitol agenda: The Senate’s fly-out agenda takes shape

Published

22 minutes ago

July 31, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Republicans are prepping a jam-packed — if somewhat optimistic — agenda for their final week before summer recess.

Majority Leader John Thune wants to move stopgap funding through Dec. 11, bipartisan Russia sanctions legislation and a bloc of nominees — perhaps including attorney general pick Todd Blanche.

He’s also under pressure from President Donald Trump, administration officials and many of his GOP colleagues to adopt a budget resolution — the first step in unlocking another party-line spending bill.

Leaders are prioritizing the stopgap, though. Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) expects continuing resolution text to be unveiled later today, she told reporters Thursday, and an initial vote is expected Monday evening.

Still TBD: Collins wants to use the funding patch to block the Trump administration from putting political appointees in charge of approving grants — a demand Democratic senators are also making.

The decision is in Thune’s hands. He acknowledged a “handful of issues” are still under consideration with the CR, and said he’s “hoping both sides can come together and figure” them out.

As for the sanctions bill, leaders of both parties are still trying to work out a deal to fast-track the legislation amid concerns from some Democrats and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) that it gives Trump too much tariff power.

In addition to the nominees package, Thune also hasn’t ruled out an initial vote on the landmark cryptocurrency bill both parties have spent months negotiating or teeing up a bipartisan college sports overhaul now in final stages of talks.

But the big question is whether Republicans can take a major step toward another reconciliation bill by advancing a budget resolution.

Thune met Thursday with Budget Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who said he was “optimistic in terms of how things are kind of coming together.”

Republicans anticipate giving a number of Senate committees instructions for the bill, setting up a lengthy and politically painful process ahead of adoption despite pushes for urgency from the White House.

Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, was the latest official to head to Capitol Hill to try and light a fire under top Republicans. But GOP senators don’t necessarily see the urgency.

“The hard part is the president wants to be able to move fast, like an executive can move, and we’re a legislative branch,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.). “It doesn’t move that fast.”

What else we’re watching:

— BLANCHE TEETERING: Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general isn’t dead yet. But it’s certainly on life support. The acting AG met with Cornyn and Tillis Thursday at NRSC headquarters, and one person familiar with the discussion said the group was “working collaboratively now.” But it would now be difficult to confirm him before August recess under Senate rules.

— FARM BILL TEXT: Senate Agriculture Chair John Boozman said his farm bill legislative text — originally expected Thursday — could come Friday or Saturday. The bill, which is expected to include language allowing year-round E15 sales and a potential compromise on postponing GOP-led cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is set to be marked up Thursday.

Jordain Carney and Grace Yarrow contributed to this report.

Congress

Former MLB star Mark Teixeira to hit campaign trail with GOP leaders

Published

4 hours ago

July 31, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House GOP leaders are planning to bring former MLB star Mark Teixeira, one of their top candidate recruits this cycle, out on the trail in battleground districts over the summer recess sprint.

Majority Leader Steve Scalise will host a fundraiser with Teixeira in New York City on Aug. 20 with Speaker Mike Johnson as a special guest, according to three people with direct knowledge of the event, granted anonymity to discuss plans that have not yet been made public.

It’s part of a New York swing where Teixeira and Johnson will also hit nearby stops in GOP Rep. Mike Lawler’s 17th Congressional District and for Mike LiPetri, who is trying to unseat Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi in New York’s 3rd Congressional District.

Teixeira is running to replace GOP Rep. Chip Roy in Texas’ 21st Congressional District. He won a World Series title with the Yankees in 2009 and also played for the Texas Rangers, Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Angels before retiring from professional baseball in 2016 after 14 seasons.

Because Teixeira has little chance of losing in the deep-red seat, Republican leaders are hoping to harness his star power to boost their candidates in the most competitive races. They’re planning for Teixeira to help campaign in a wider swath of battleground districts in August and through November, including likely stops in Pennsylvania and Georgia.

Congress

Faced with Blanche dilemma, Trump chooses revenge

Published

4 hours ago

July 31, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump has a choice: allow changes to a controversial court settlement and secure the confirmation of his former personal lawyer as attorney general, or thumb his nose at a pair of his few remaining Republican critics in Congress.

True to form, he is giving no ground — so far.

Trump’s decision Thursday to signal he would rather pull the nomination of Todd Blanche, his pick to lead the Justice Department, rather than give in to the demands of Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis demonstrated that the president’s desire to thwart his enemies does not end with the demise of their political careers.

Both Republican senators will leave Congress at the end of the year after running afoul of Trump, and both have found a degree of independence since becoming untethered from needing to keep in his good graces.

But their efforts to exert leverage and seek to curtail a controversial settlement agreement reached in May between Trump and the IRS only prompted the president to double down. He announced in a Truth Social post that Blanche would remain as acting attorney general “in any event” and that he would potentially withdraw and resubmit the nomination “after Cornyn and Tillis are out of office” in January.

Tillis, who announced he would not seek reelection last year after clashing with Trump over Medicaid cuts in his home state of North Carolina, betrayed little surprise when asked about Trump’s reticence to bargain over the IRS settlement.

“Look up the definition of recalcitrant,” he said.

Cornyn, who lost his bid for renomination to a fifth term representing Texas in May after Trump endorsed a scandal-prone opponent, brushed off the accusation that he was simply seeking revenge by blocking Blanche.

He called Trump’s claim “a convenient excuse, but it’s certainly not true.” And he warned the president that trying to wait him out would be a “gamble.”

“After the midterms, who knows who’s going to be the next United States senator from North Carolina or Texas?” he said.

The subtext of Cornyn’s remark was that Republicans might have a smaller majority if they have one at all — raising the question that if Trump can’t strike a deal with members of his own party to advance his prized nominee, what will governing with Democrats possibly look like?

One of Trump’s frequent Democratic sparring partners from his first term in office — Sen. Adam Schiff of California — said the pressure from Cornyn and Tillis is only a hint of what is to come and that the president should get used to “a restoration of checks and balances.”

“I would hope what it will mean both for the remainder of this Congress and the next is that Congress will once again assume the role of being a counterbalance to the power of the executive,” said Schiff, who led Democrats’ first Trump impeachment attempt. “We largely reneged on that.”

The battle of Blanche has been especially pitched given Trump’s personal interests. Not only did Blanche represent Trump in multiple cases brought in the years before the president’s reelection, Cornyn and Tillis were seeking to curtail a deal that personally benefited him.

Both men sought to ensure a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” set out in the agreement text could not be revived and to restrict the terms of an audit immunity agreement applying to Trump, his family and business.

It’s possible a deal could still be reached. Cornyn and Tillis met with Blanche Thursday afternoon after Trump issued his ultimatum. One person granted anonymity to describe the private meeting said the two sides were “working collaboratively now” and that it was good “they were finally all face to face.”

Ahead of the meeting, both senators insinuated that the White House — not Blanche — was the obstacle to revising the settlement and moving forward with the confirmation. Cornyn explicitly blamed Trump, while Tillis said the presidents’ advisers could be to blame.

“They’re making this a lot harder than it needs to be,” Cornyn said Wednesday. “We’ve tried to make it easy for them, and they simply refuse to take our help.”

Both said they believed there was a desire in Trump’s orbit to resurrect the payout fund at some point to direct federal settlements to the president’s political allies.

GOP colleagues also chalked up Thursday’s drama to the White House not wanting to give in — whether to protect the original settlement agreement or to deny Trump’s critics a victory.“Clearly, the White House does not want to do what Senator Cornyn and Senator Tillis were asking,” said Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said she shared Cornyn and Tillis’ qualms about the settlement and asked Blanche in her own private meeting to put his oral commitments in writing.

“I have expressed the same concerns, and I am waiting for the same answers,” said Murkowski, an occasional Trump critic who is up for reelection in 2028.

Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.