ICYMI: Star-Ledger: Gottheimer “Bucking the Partisan Divide and Trying to Reach Out to the Other Side,” Named Most Bipartisan Freshman Dem

“With Republicans controlling Congress and President Donald Trump in the White House, it sometimes feels as if no Democrats need apply.

Nevertheless, some lawmakers are bucking the partisan divide and trying to reach out to the other side. And two do it more than most are from New Jersey.

Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Leonard Lance, were listed as being among the most bipartisan lawmakers in Congress by the Lugar Center, a public policy group headed by former U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and by Georgetown  University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. 

Gottheimer ranked eighth and Lance 12th out of 435 House members in the report, which is based on how often individuals’ legislation most frequently attracts co-sponsors from lawmakers of the other political party and which lawmakers who most often add their names to bills introduced by a member of the opposition.

“I believe no one side owns all the best answers, so I’ll continue fighting for New Jersey with a common sense approach to cutting taxes, investing in infrastructure, and eliminating bureaucratic red tape,” said Gottheimer, D-5th Dist., co-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus.

Gottheimer and Lance were among a bipartisan group of House members who offered proposals to fix the Affordable Care Act after Trump”s efforts to kill the law died in the Senate.”