Hi — I wanted to share this article from “The Record” on my bipartisan work in Congress, including last week’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. I pasted the link and the article below. I'm always eager to hear your thoughts, and thanks again for everything. Happy Thanksgiving!
Yours,
Josh
[link removed]
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How does Gottheimer navigate the middle of America's political minefield? | Mike Kelly | 4:00 AM ET Nov. 18, 2021
Walking down the middle of any street can get you killed.
Walking across the middle of America’s political battlefields is not exactly safe either.
Such is the self-chosen blessing — and a potential curse — of Rep. Josh Gottheimer, the Democrat from Wyckoff.
This week was a blessing, as Gottheimer was awarded a coveted spot on the South Lawn of the White House to watch President Joe Biden sign a $1 trillion bill to pay for a once-in-a-century fixer-upper plan for America’s bridges, roads, rails, water lines and other broken and old pieces of infrastructure.
Next week? Who knows?
Gottheimer, 46, played a key role, the White House said, in forging several knotty compromises that helped bring in Republicans to support the bill while Democratic progressives voted against it. In a recent appearance in New Jersey, Biden even singled out Gottheimer as the “best go-between I’ve had trying to get all of this done.”
In the coming days, Gottheimer may be in for another blessing, too, if the House votes on another piece of Biden’s Build Back Better agenda — an even more expensive piece of legislation to upgrade all manner of human infrastructure, from child care to paid family leave.
Or it could be Gottheimer's curse.
For months, Gottheimer has worked feverishly to convince House members to include the so-called SALT tax relief in the social spending plan. If included in the $1.75 trillion social spending bill, SALT relief would allow residents of high-tax states such as New Jersey to make major deductions for state and local taxes.
But many progressives oppose the SALT plan. Republicans are not exactly on board either.
As a result, the social spending plan could be Gottheimer’s curse as he approaches next November’s mid-term elections. He's a man in the middle.
'I get to be in the middle'
Republicans have already targeted the measure as too expensive and an example of how Democrats are trying to impose European-like socialism on America. Meanwhile, Democratic progressives claim Gottheimer aligned himself with U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat, in watering down the bill.
As Gottheimer prepares for the 2022 election, he expects to be challenged in the Democratic primary just like he was in 2020 by a progressive who feels he is not woke enough on issues of social and racial justice. If he survives that, he can expect a full-throttle attempt by Republicans to portray him a liberal incapable of servicing a district that was the domain of avowed Republican conservative Rep. Scott Garrett for 14 years.
For the past several years, this columnist has followed Gottheimer, the co-chair of the bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus, as he navigated the perilous middle ground of America’s increasingly divided political landscape. Here is another look, based on a series of conversations with Gottheimer, conducted in recent weeks as he worked inside the Biden administration to help broker a compromise that led to the signing of the historic infrastructure legislation.
“At the end of the day, the best way to win is to do your job well,” Gottheimer said recently, adding that “the good news is that I get to be in the middle.”
The remarks are pure boiler-plate politics, for sure — something for a high school civics class. But in Gottheimer’s case, they touch on an important truths.
To understand Gottheimer’s political strategy, you need to examine the multifaceted landscape he represents and how doing his job involves catering to what he describes as such non-partisan needs as requests from military veterans for help and overtures by Republican mayors for money to build new fire houses and fill pot holes.
New Jersey’s fifth congressional district, which Gottheimer has represented since he defeated Garrett in the tumultuous 2016 election, stretches like a boomerang across the northern shoulders of New Jersey, from the Hudson to the Delaware.
Voters range in Gottheimer's districts. There are bright-red, uber-conservative supporters of former President Donald Trump in Sussex County. They seem want to crack down on immigration and seem to dream of a return to a Norman Rockwell painting version of America. Meanwhile, there are the true-blue progressives in Teaneck who cling to a leftist dream of socialism and see Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez as their guiding lights.
In between those realities are vast stretches of upscale suburbia, with its decidedly “purple” politics that mixes a Ronald Reagan-like conservative’s desire for lower taxes with Biden’s nuanced, left-of-center views on such volatile cultural issues as gun control, gay rights and abortion.
Understanding those political colors guides Gottheimer’s steps.
“Extremism is not where my district is at,” he said in one interview.
'Bring everybody together'
With that in mind, it seems almost poetic that Gottheimer’s major political victory so far this year involves repairing bridges.
The trillion-dollar infrastructure plan will provide billions to begin fixing the more than 600 bridges in New Jersey that are labeled as “structurally deficient.”
These include the nearly century-old Route 4 span across the Hackensack River.
Another key piece of the infrastructure plan is the Gateway rail tunnel that would replace the century-old tunnels that carry tens of thousands of passengers on Amtrak and New Transit trains. Replacing those tunnels is considered one of America’s most important infrastructure projects in the next decade.
Yet another piece of the infrastructure bill involves expanding computer broadband services to rural towns — an important feature in the western, mostly Republican corners of Gottheimer’s district.
Pushing this bill across the finish line and on to Biden’s desk at the White House for his presidential signature was not easy, however.
As the Democratic co-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus in the House, Gottheimer placed himself in the precarious position of trying to forge compromises with a variety of Republicans — in the Senate as well as the House.
As the time to vote on the bill neared and such House progressives as Ocasio-Cortez refused to support it, it fell to Gottheimer to pull together a collection of Republican House members to cast their votes in favor of the plan.
In the end, 13 House Republicans — including Chris Smith and Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey — supported the infrastructure upgrade package, along with such Senate Republican stalwarts as Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Trump supporters and other GOP conservatives are already promising to defeat, in next year’s election, any House Republicans who supported the infrastructure plan.
Such in-fighting is already threatening to derail the so-called “human infrastructure” legislation.
Gottheimer says he plans to withhold support for the bill until its spending and revenue is analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office.
But the National Republican Congressional Committee, the chief campaign arm of efforts by Republicans to seize control of the House, has targeted Gottheimer for back-peddling on his promise to wait for the CBO analysis.
Meanwhile, Gottheimer’s losing 2020 GOP opponent, Frank T. Pallotta of Ramsey, has started a campaign to challenge him.
In a recent email, Pallotta claimed he was leading Gottheimer by four points in a poll.
It turns out that the poll cited by Pallotta was conducted by Republicans and has been largely discredited by Democratic strategists. Nonetheless, Gottheimer cited the poll in a recent email to supporters asking for campaign donations.
Such messaging underscores just how precarious the political ground has become in districts like Gottheimer’s.
For now, however, he claims he is content to be straddling the middle.
“My job,” Gottheimer said, “is to bring everybody together.”
It’s a nice idea — one for a political science dissertation perhaps.
On the ground in Gottheimer’s diverse House district, it may even be a blessing.
Or it may be a curse.
In the coming weeks, Josh Gottheimer will find out.
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