Laken Riley’s bill shakes up NJ governor’s race as 2 Democrats jump: ‘The more someone campaigns, the less they vote’
Two Democrats in race to succeed term-limited 2025 New Jersey Governor Philip Murphy did not vote this week in Congress on Laken Riley’s bill, leading to criticism from gubernatorial candidates from both parties.
The House Clerk’s Office noted that Reps. Mikie Sherrill of Essex and Josh Gotheimer of Bergen County were listed as “not voting” on the landmark bill, which would require illegal immigrants convicted of theft-related crimes to be detained by municipal and state authorities .
The law is named after a young woman who was killed by an illegal immigrant in Georgia, who was previously arrested and released on lesser charges.
Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop exclaimed, “This is cowardly,” in X’s post.
Reps. Mikie Sherrill and Rep. Josh Gotheimer (Getty)
“We lose elections when we don’t have core beliefs … when we can’t explain why we have a position and why we believe in it. Hiding is not an answer that wins elections,” the Democrat said.
“Mikie and Josh are the same again – if you don’t have the guts to vote for the bill, what does that say about your guts to be governor?” Fulop added.
Meanwhile, former Republican Rep. Jack Ciattarelli slammed two lawmakers to their right.
“Shame [Josh and Mikie] for gutlessly rigging the Laken Riley Act vote today,” Ciattarelli said.
On X, Ciattarelli said Riley “fought to the last breath against a murderous illegal immigrant, but Josh/Mikie didn’t have the guts to stand up to their far left base.”
Ciattarelli ran against Murphy in 2021 and nearly beat him by Garden State standards, losing by less than three points. In November, President-elect Trump lost the state by just four points, leading the GOP to express optimism about turning Trenton around this fall.
The last time the bill came up for a vote, Gotheimer voted “yes,” and a spokesman told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he would have supported the bill this week if he had voted.
New Jersey’s three Republican congressmen – Reps. Christopher Smith, Jeff Van Drew, and Tom Kean Jr. – all voted for Laken Riley’s bill.
Democratic Reps. Nellie Pou, Frank Pallone, Herbert Conaway, LaMonica McIver, Donald Norcross and Rob Menendez Jr. everyone voted against it.
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Republican Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia — who is not running for governor — blasted the pair Wednesday with a joke:
“The road to Drumthwacket is paved with squirrels that couldn’t make up their minds,” she said, referring to the historic governor’s mansion near Princeton.
State Sen. Jon BramnickRepublican candidate for governor, told Fox News Digital on Thursday that a lawmaker’s first responsibility is to his constituents, not to the next campaign.
“I think campaign activities have to be secondary to your responsibility,” Bramnick said when asked about Gotheimer and Sherrill not voting.
“The key issue is – if you intend to run – campaign activities must be secondary to your voting”, adding that systematically it seems “as much as possible [someone] campaigns vote as little as possible.”
Bramnick, who is also an attorney in Plainfield, added that he could not guess what was on the minds of the two Democrats in terms of their vote, but that immigration is a hot topic and often difficult to navigate.
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State Senator Jon Bramnick recently spoke out about drone sightings in New Jersey. (Bobby Bank/Getty Images | Doug Hood/Asbury Park Press)
With Laken Riley’s bill receiving 48 Democratic “yes” votes, Bramnick said immigration is a bipartisan issue.
If elected governor, he said he would “follow the law” when asked how he would approach President-elect Trump or the border czar-designate Tom Homan.
“Unfortunately, Congress did nothing [create] a path to citizenship for people who might have a chance to stay here,” he said, referring to those who have lived in the U.S. for years as otherwise law-abiding members of their communities.
“If America doesn’t like the law, change it, but state by state shouldn’t be changing the law based on what they think about the issue.”
Sherrill and Gotheimer did not immediately respond to inquiries placed through their campaigns.
Another Democrat in the race, Ras Baraka — the mayor of the state’s largest city, Newark — also did not respond.
Baraka, however, separately indicated that he would have voted against the Laken Riley bill if he had been in Congress.
