Credit: (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

WASHINGTON — With one exception, every lawmaker who represents New Jersey in Congress voted this week to fund the government with short-term legislation, a bipartisan deal that will keep federal agencies running into December.

Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-2nd) voted against the bill, which is cleared for President Joe Biden’s signature.

“I want to emphasize that I do not support shutting down the government,” Van Drew said in an emailed statement. “I voted in favor of the continuing resolution that ensures illegal immigrants cannot vote in federal elections,” he said, referring to a Republican-authored bill that did not clear the House last week. “I believe we should have made greater efforts and pushed harder toward achieving that goal.”

In unusually quick back-to-back votes Wednesday, the House and then the Senate voted to pass the legislation, which funds the federal government at current spending levels until Dec. 20.

The House voted 341-82, as every Democrat and a majority of Republicans voted for the legislation, before the bill sailed through the Senate, 78-18.

Back home to campaign

Quick passage of the bill allows lawmakers to head home to campaign for reelection in a presidential election year when the majorities in both the House and the Senate are up for grabs, and the presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is narrowly contested.

Members from southern states, in particular Florida, also wanted to rush home to prepare for Hurricane Helene to make landfall.

Had Congress not passed some sort of funding legislation, a government shutdown of federal agencies would have kicked in Oct. 1, though some federal jobs, including for staffers who work in law enforcement or security positions, are exempt.

Lawmakers are set to return on Nov. 12, when both chambers are next scheduled to be in session. They will have about five weeks to negotiate a new deal to fund the federal government through Sept. 30 of next year, the end of the next federal budget cycle.

To fund the government, Congress is meant to write, debate and then vote on and pass 12 separate pieces of legislation before the next budget cycle starts.

The last time that happened on time was 1997.

House Republicans were forced into a new funding strategy this week after a bill of theirs to fund the government for six months was voted down Sept. 18, 202-220.

Voter ID

That bill, which had support from Trump, was a nonstarter in the Senate, where Democrats hold the majority, due in part to language that would have required people to show proof of citizenship to register to vote.

The three House Republicans from New Jersey — Reps. Chris Smith, Tom Kean Jr. and Van Drew — voted for that bill and its national limits on voter registration. Every New Jersey Democrat voted against it.

The Republican trio also voted in August to tighten voter ID requirements and in May for a bill to exclude people who are not citizens but live in the U.S. from being counted in the 2030 census.

It is illegal in federal elections for noncitizens to vote and it is exceedingly rare for noncitizens to vote in U.S. elections.

In a statement, the White House budget office criticized the Republican proposal, saying Biden would have vetoed it if it had reached his desk.

“It is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections — it is a federal crime punishable by prison and fines,” the statement said. “This behavior is wrong and the law clearly prohibits it.”

Voter identification laws have also been shown to make it more difficult for non-white voters and voters who live on tribal reservations to cast their ballots.

More funding for Secret Service

The spending bill Congress passed this week includes an additional $231 million for the Secret Service, which has come under sharp criticism after two recent attempts to assassinate Trump.

The bill also provides $174,000 in funding to the widows or heirs of three members of Congress who died this year: Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and New Jersey’s Bill Pascrell and Donald Payne Jr.

Under the legislation, Pascrell’s widow Elsie and Payne’s widow Beatrice will each receive payments of $174,000 — the salary for a member of the House.

Under a 1946 law, Congress has issued death payments to heirs of members of Congress who die in office, according to the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, a budget watchdog group.

The practice started at a time when the surviving spouses of recently deceased members, almost always women, would have limited financial options.

VA, Ukraine left out

The spending bill does not include $12 billion lawmakers had sought for the Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA is running low on funding to meet benefits payments to military veterans who were exposed while stationed abroad to toxic substances burned in pits.

Extra funding for a weapons package for Ukraine was also left out.

Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy met Thursday in the Capitol with a bipartisan group of senators to discuss military strategy and U.S. funding for his nation, locked in an ongoing war with Russia, which attacked Ukraine in February 2022.

The Biden administration on Thursday pledged about $8 billion in military assistance for Ukraine, including for long-range missiles.

Van Drew alone

At times, Van Drew has been an outlier within the state delegation this Congress.

In January, he was the lone New Jersey member to vote against another stopgap spending bill.

He was also the only New Jersey member to vote last year against raising the debt ceiling — the legislative barrier to what the U.S. can borrow to pay back debt it already owes to creditors — and on a series of short-term bills to fund the government in the past two years.

— Chart by Genesis Obando