Gov. Murphy expected to name George Helmy to replace Bob Menendez as NJ senator
(TRENTON, N.J.) — New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is expected to name his former chief of staff and longtime friend and political ally, George Helmy, as interim senator to replace Bob Menendez in the wake of him being convicted of fraud.
Murphy will hold a news conference in Newark on Friday to officially announce his selection for who will fill the remainder of the resigning Menendez’s term in the U.S. Senate.
Menendez wrote to Murphy last month saying he will resign from the Senate as of Aug. 20.
Murphy declined to confirm Helmy is his pick during an interview on local station WYNW on Thursday morning, instead promising an announcement “over the next couple of days.”
“That is the rumor. He’s a great guy, great professional. Great human being,” Murphy told the Fox station when pressed about if Helmy is the pick. “But nothing official, nothing to report.”
ABC News has reached out to Murphy’s office for comment on the reports that he will choose Helmy.
If Murphy names Helmy as the interim senator, that means bypassing Rep. Andy Kim, D-N.J., who is the Democratic nominee in New Jersey for the U.S. Senate and is likely to be elected in November for the full term. A representative for Kim deferred any comment until the official announcement.
Friday is also the last day Menendez can remove his name from the November ballot. The 70-year-old is still officially on the ballot running for his seat as an independent candidate.
Menendez, who had served as senator in New Jersey since 2006, was convicted on all counts, including bribery, fraud, acting as a foreign agent and obstruction, in a federal trial last month.
He planned to appeal his conviction and said he was “deeply disappointed” by the jury’s decision. His sentencing was set for Oct. 29.
“I have never violated my oath,” he said outside the courthouse following his conviction. “I have never been anything but a patriot of my country and for my country. I have never, ever been a foreign agent.”
(WASHINGTON) — Former Vice President Dick Cheney, one of the most prominent Republicans in the last half-century, will be crossing party lines this election and voting for Vice President Kamala Harris, his daughter Liz Cheney said Friday, who contended her father sees former President Donald Trump as a “grave a threat to our democracy.”
The former House member who represented Wyoming told “The Atlantic” reporter Mark Leibovich during an interview at the Texas Tribute Festival that her father believes this is a serious moment in history.
“My dad believes — and he said publicly — that there’s never been an individual in our country who is as grave a threat to our democracy as Donald Trump is, and that’s, that’s the moment that we’re facing,” she said.
Tune in to “This Week” on Sunday, Sept. 8, where co-anchor Jonathan Karl will have an exclusive interview with Liz Cheney.Both Cheneys have been open about their criticism of Trump following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.
Earlier in the week, Liz Cheney said she was going to vote for Harris.
She lost her seat in the 2022 primary to Trump-backed Harriet Hageman by more than 60,000 votes, according to election results.
Cheney made news on another front during her remarks at the festival and said she would support incumbent Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s Democratic challenger Rep. Colin Allred ahead of November. She said that one of the most important things to do to “rebuild our politics is we need to elect serious people.”
“You know, there aren’t enough good candidates running. I want to say specifically, though, here in Texas, you guys do have a tremendous, serious candidate running for the United States Senate, and his name is …” Cheney began before being interrupted by an applause. “Well, it’s not Ted Cruz.”
“Colin Allred is somebody I served with in the House … When you think about the kind of leaders our country needs, and going to this point about [how] you might not agree on every policy position, but we need people who are going to serve in good faith. We need people who are honorable public servants and and in this race that is Colin Allred, so I’ll be working on his behalf,” she continued.
(WASHINGTON) — When Congress returns to Washington on Monday after summer recess, lawmakers will be staring down a looming government shutdown on Sept. 30 when funding is set to run out.
But before they get down to brass tacks, Republicans and Democrats will face off in an election-year partisan battle over voter eligibility.
During a private phone call with the House Republican Conference on Wednesday, sources told ABC News that House Speaker Mike Johnson outlined his plan to avert a government shutdown — rallying House Republicans around a short-term government funding bill that extends funding into March 2025 but includes a major policy proposal Democrats warn will kill the money bill.
Sources said Johnson told members that he wants to hold a vote on his short-term funding plan early next week — although next week’s floor schedule has not been officially announced.
House leaders regularly attach priority items to must-pass stopgap funding bills as a means of pushing through measures their members demand.
This will be no different, as Johnson told members. According to sources, he’ll attempt to attach the SAVE Act — a bill requiring individuals to provide proof of U.S. citizenship to vote — to the funding bill.
Johnson’s opening salvo to address the looming funding deadline likely won’t be a winning solution. But with a narrow majority and conservatives clamoring for the SAVE Act, he will attempt to lay down a legislative marker in the House — and give GOP members legislation to point to on the campaign trail.
Senate Democrats have already said the SAVE Act is a non-starter for them, but Johnson’s move sets up a showdown between the chambers with just months remaining until Election Day.
What is the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act?
The SAVE Act, which has the backing of former President Donald Trump and the far-right House Freedom Caucus, is a bill that seeks to expand proof of citizenship requirements to vote in federal elections. It bans states from accepting and processing an application to register to vote in a federal election unless the applicant presents documentary proof of U.S. citizenship.
The House passed the SAVE Act on July 10 by a bipartisan vote of 221-198, with five election-year vulnerable Democrats crossing the aisle to vote with all Republicans. It’s unclear whether that same support would carry over into Johnson’s planed showdown vote over funding the government.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus calls the bill “extreme and dangerous” and warns it would purge millions of legal voters from state rolls and make it much more difficult for Americans to reregister to vote.
“Let’s call it what it is — this is a direct attack on hard-working families, including Latino communities,” the Congressional Hispanic Caucus said in a statement following House passage of the bill.
During a press briefing on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called on Republicans to drop the SAVE Act from their funding bill and to instead advance a clean short-term version, called a continuing resolution, or CR.
“We want to see a clean CR,” Jean-Pierre told ABC’s Karen Travers. “That’s what we want to see.”
The administration “strongly opposes” the SAVE Act, Jean-Pierre said. “It is already illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections. It’s already illegal.”
Senate Democrats almost sure to oppose
Johnson’s proposal is likely to set off a fierce fight between the House and the Senate, as Senate Democrats will almost certainly reject the stopgap bill because of the inclusion of the SAVE Act.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray called it a “poison pill” and a “nonstarter.”
“We’ve seen this movie before, and we know how it ends. Senate Democrats will continue to work in a bipartisan way to ensure we can keep the government funded and deliver responsible, bipartisan spending bills that can actually be signed into law before the end of the year,” Murray said.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has not yet outlined a plan for dealing with government funding, but he warned House colleagues against the inclusion of any partisan matters in a must-pass funding bill.
“As we have said each time we’ve had CR, the only way to get things done is in a bipartisan way and that is what has happened every time,” Schumer said in a statement to ABC News.
It’s also not yet clear whether the March 2025 extension date Johnson is proposing will sit well with Democrats, who may seek a much shorter stopgap that allows them to continue to debate and potentially lock in annual appropriations during the lame-duck session at the end of this year.
If it feels to you like we just did this, you’re not wrong.
Government funding expires annually at the end of the federal government’s fiscal year on Sept. 30.
Passing annual appropriations for 2024 was especially calamitous. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy lost his job over it. Johnson was installed because of it, but not without also facing threats to his position. Johnson ultimately implemented a never-before-seen two deadline system to help push the ball over the line.
Congress did not complete its work codifying current spending levels until mid-March, blowing months past the annual deadline. By the time all the bills were passed, they only funded the government for about six months.
Once again, the deadline is fast-approaching at the end of the month.
As of Wednesday, the House had passed five of the 12 individual government funding bills, including for Defense, Homeland Security, Interior-Environment, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and State-Foreign Operations.
House GOP leaders hoped they would be able to clear all 12 bills, but the reality is that there is not enough time to do so.
Right after taking the gavel in October 2023, Johnson said in a letter obtained by ABC News to colleagues that he would not break for August recess until all 12 appropriations bills had passed the House.
“DO NOT break for district work period unless all 12 appropriations bills have passed the House,” Johnson wrote in his first letter as speaker.
That promise was not kept.
Meanwhile, to date, the Senate has not passed a single appropriations bill.
(WASHINGTON) — As voters prepare to head to the polls in November, inflation, foreign policy and reproductive rights have dominated the national conversation, with environmental policy failing to emerge as a major ballot issue.
But with climate change fueling more damaging and deadly weather events, experts question if the effects of global warming have fallen victim to over-politicization on the national stage.
“There’s no innate reason that addressing climate change should be a partisan issue, but unfortunately, it has become one,” Gregory Dotson, former chief counsel of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and current environmental law professor at the University of Oregon, told ABC News.
“This is an extremely consequential election with regard to climate change,” Dotson added.
National polls from the Pew Research Center released in Feb. 2024, found that Americans on both sides of the political aisle rank climate change initiatives as a far lower policy priority than other ballot issues.
Between party lines, however, Democrats are substantially more likely than Republicans to prioritize protecting the environment (63% vs. 23%) and dealing with climate change (59% vs. 12%), according to the survey.
Still, these findings may underestimate the public’s support for climate initiatives despite not being a top voting priority.
“The large majority of Americans would prefer government action on climate change, but that doesn’t mean that they prioritize the issue when they’re going into their polling place and voting,” Nathaniel Stinnett, executive director of the Environmental Voter Project, told ABC News.
Stinnett referred to the general public’s concern over environmental issues as “a mile wide and an inch deep,” meaning there is general awareness, but it’s not pushing the needle one way or the other politically.
The campaign for the White House this election sees Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on the Democratic ticket and former President Donald Trump and Ohio Sen. JD Vance as the Republican nominees.
Among the several issues that contrast the parties is their approach to climate.
Trump and Vance have been vocal about domestic oil production on the campaign trail, vowing to reverse clean energy projects “on day one” and denouncing the Green New Deal as a “scam.”
Trump claimed at the Republican National Convention in July that an increased domestic production of oil and gas would lead to a “large-scale decline in prices,” for Americans at the gas pump.
The U.S. averaged a record-breaking 12.9 million barrels of crude oil production per day in 2023 under President Joe Biden’s tenure, breaking the previous global record set in 2019 under Trump’s leadership, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
“We can look at what the previous administration did on environmental policy, and they did not think this is something that was important and worth addressing,” Dotson said of Trump’s administration.
Trump has said his motivation behind withdrawing from climate initiatives, such as the Paris Climate Accord, is driven by economic needs and the push for energy independence.
“If Vice President Harris wins, I don’t think you would anticipate major changes, major reversals to address climate change,” Dotson added, specifically referencing the Inflation Reduction Act, which offers funding, programs and incentives to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy.
Harris and her newly announced running mate, Walz, bring a history of progressive environmental measures to the race, with nonprofit climate groups dubbing the Democratic nominees a “winning ticket on climate.”
As a U.S. senator, Harris was an early co-sponsor of the Green New Deal and in 2019, as a candidate for president, Harris unveiled a plan to spend $10 trillion to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with a goal of getting to a zero-emissions economy by 2045.
As governor, Walz has pushed for climate action and growth in renewable energy. In 2019, he signed an executive order calling climate change an “existential threat,” and in 2023, he championed a budget bill requiring Minnesota to reach 100% of electricity from carbon-free resources by 2040.
In the countdown to the election, wildfires are raging across the West, tropical storms have threatened the East and unprecedented temperatures are affecting much of the nation.
The frequency and severity of these weather events are increased by the rise in greenhouse gas emissions, primarily through the burning of coal, natural gas and oil. The U.S. is the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China.
“There is nothing that’s going to affect people’s health, livelihood and safety more than environmental issues,” Paul Anastas, a professor in Yale University’s School of the Environment and former chief scientist in the Environmental Protection Agency, told ABC News.
“That is not the way it’s being addressed publicly, but I think it needs to be,” Anastas added, maintaining that if climate change were characterized as a health and safety issue, it wouldn’t be as divisive among party lines.
Anastas, who co-founded the Green Chemistry Institute and has won the Nobel Prize for his work in sustainability, fears that the conversation surrounding climate change is missing an integral piece – the solutions.
If the country is going to transition to clean energy, Anastas believes the existing oil and gas infrastructure is the best fit to make that a reality.
His work includes research on producing green hydrogen and alternate, nonpolluting ways to produce sustainable aviation fuels with carbon dioxide.
“No one has the infrastructure today better to make and transport that hydrogen than the oil and gas industry,” Anastas said. “The people who are making money off causing the problem are probably going to need to make money off advancing the solution,” he added.