The late Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) had not yet been buried before his heir apparent became, well, apparent.

In the days after the fiery 87-year-old congressmember’s death, four seasoned elected officials opted to run in an ultra-abbreviated contest to replace him as the 9th Congressional District’s Democratic nominee this November.

Then the three Democratic chairs of the counties that make up the North Jersey district settled on a consensus choice, once again showing the influence of a handful of party bosses while voters haven’t even had time to digest the news — though timing and state law forced a quick process.

They backed state Sen. Nellie Pou, a 27-year lawmaker whose calm, pleasant demeanor stands in stark contrast to the cantankerous Pascrell.

Pou also gave New Jersey’s Hispanic communities another foothold in power following the corruption conviction and resignation of Sen. Bob Menendez, the state’s most politically prominent Latino ever. Pou has chaired the state’s legislative Latino caucus since 2006 and is the former president of the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators.

Pascrell died Wednesday, Aug. 21. Within a few days, Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh and Assemblymembers Shavonda Sumter and Benjie Wimberly jumped into the race to succeed him. Their candidacies were short lived: On Monday, Sayegh dropped out, citing the “current political circumstances.” On Tuesday, Sumter followed. And on Wednesday, Wimberly became the final Pou rival to leave the race.

By the time low-level county party officials from the district convened in Wayne on Thursday evening, the planned convention had basically become Pou’s coronation, with even Gov. Phil Murphy and Pascrell’s family endorsing her.

“The Pascrell family is pleased that Nellie Pou will carry the Democratic banner in the Ninth District,” they said in a statement. “Senator Pou is a worthy heir to carry on Congressman Pascrell’s important work on behalf of the great people of Bergen, Hudson, and Passaic Counties. We know our father would be happy to see Senator Pou succeed him and so are we.”

New Jersey’s political boss system has faced criticism before. But less in this case, since Pascrell died two-and-a-half months after the primary. His succession process, and the Aug. 29 deadline to choose a replacement, was dictated by state law. And despite the rushed process, Pascrell’s seat will remain empty until January.

In the state Legislature, Pou has been a reliable vote for the Democratic caucus. She was the top sponsor on legislation to ban child marriage in the state in all circumstances, which made New Jersey only the second state in the nation to do so when it became law in 2018. She was also the top legislative sponsor of a bill that allowed for the early release of certain incarcerated people that were near the end of their sentences during the Covid-19 pandemic.

On federal issues, Pou sponsored symbolic resolutions in the state Legislature urging Congress to codify the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program when the Trump administration tried to end the program and another resolution that sought funding for affordable housing funding in the federal Build Back Better legislation.

In an interview with POLITICO Friday morning, Pou described herself as a “moderate progressive.”

“There are a number of key issues with respect to health care, with respect to social justice, with respect to the economy, in terms of making sure that someone … is able to be able to afford buying a home, but also are paid decent wages in order to ensure that they can maintain that home,” Pou said when asked on what she plans to advocate on in Congress. “So we’re talking about basic everyday living ability so that they can be able to provide a stable location for them and or their families.”

During a recent debate — when there were still several declared candidates in the race — Pou said that she “would be supportive of the green new bill” when asked about the Green New Deal and that “there ought to be Medicare for all.” Pou, who is of Puerto Rican heritage, also told POLITICO that she supports statehood for Puerto Rico.

The 9th Congressional District has one of the largest Palestinian American populations in the country – Pascrell beat a primary challenger who ran a campaign largely focused on a ceasefire in the war. When asked if there should be conditions on military aid to Israel, Pou told POLITICO “I think that we should continue the arrangements that we currently have” that is at “the very same level of financial support.”

“I’m a supporter of Israel, absolutely,” she said. “I do think it’s important for us to ensure that the people of Gaza that are being impacted by that, we should be very careful not to impact anyone that is not part of the Hamas terrorist group.”

Pou said that “any kind of pause” in the war in Gaza should be “done on the basis of making sure that all the hostages” held by Hamas are released.

Billy Prempeh, the Republican who will face Pou in November, said he’d like to see the process for filling vacancies change, and that his own plan to limit members of Congress to 10 years in office would have avoided the scramble following the death of Pascrell after nearly 28 years in office.

“The process is pretty undemocratic. Now we have two candidates, Nellie and Kamala Harris, who were given the role without any vote by the Democratic voters at all,” Prempeh said.

“At the absolute very least, the party bosses should have stayed out of it. They shouldn’t have gone to the media and made these statements. They acted as kingmakers.”

Asked if the chairs should have avoided weighing in to let the rank-and-file Democratic committee members decided independently, Passaic County Democratic Chair John Currie — Sumter’s godfather — paraphrased the Bible.

“When you don’t have a leader, you perish,” Currie said in a phone interview. “You try to stop chaos.”

Pou enters the general election heavily favored against Prempeh, who’s run twice before. Prempeh lost to Pascrell in 2020 by 34 points and in 2022 by 11 points, though that margin was closer largely due to redistricting changes that made the 9th less Democratic-dominated but still Democratic-leaning.

Most House Republicans are anxious that a high-profile spending fight in September would set them up for failure just weeks before an election. Conservatives want to force one anyway.

Congress needs to pass a funding bill before Oct. 1 to avoid a government shutdown, a prospect that has caused conflict in the past year but should have been fairly straightforward this time. That’s because most Republicans and Democrats generally acknowledge they’ll need a short-term patch that keeps spending levels steady, known as a continuing resolution or a CR, to avert the shutdown in time.

But hard-right conservatives are considering throwing a curveball into those plans: linking the CR to a proposal that requires proof of citizenship to register to vote.

Three GOP lawmakers told POLITICO the discussions on linking the two are ongoing and include urging Speaker Mike Johnson to put the proposal on the floor the week of Sept. 9. A standalone citizenship voting bill passed the House earlier this year, with unanimous GOP support and five Democratic votes, but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has ignored the legislation.

Conservatives hope to force Senate Democrats’ hand by attaching the bill, known as the SAVE Act, to the must-pass spending patch — right before an election where immigration has become a frontline issue. And some of their colleagues are willing to go with it, at least as an opening salvo.

“I think the overwhelming majority of Republicans and, I think, the leadership, want to see a version of a CR with the SAVE Act the week we get back,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a leading member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, said in a brief interview.

But attaching that proposal could doom the spending package in the House. Democrats likely won’t vote for it, and Republicans aren’t certain they would have the votes to pass it on their own. GOP leadership is facing skepticism from more pragmatic Republicans who don’t want to flirt with a shutdown. And there’s a pocket of hard-right conservatives who generally oppose any short-term funding patch, even if it has conservative wins.

As a result, it sets up a potential floor defeat just weeks before an election where control of the House majority and White House seem like a toss-up. Still, conservatives say most Republicans want to attach the voting legislation to the spending bill as soon as they return from their extended summer recess, despite the long odds in the Senate.

“There’s certainly some who fear a shutdown. There are some who fear doing a CR of any kind,” Roy added.

House Republican infighting over spending isn’t new; it was a major point in the ejection of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy last year. And while this fight seems tame in comparison, it risks making the GOP look dysfunctional with less than two months until the election.

Ultimately, Republicans acknowledge that even if they get a temporary win by passing a partisan spending patch, the final outcome of the fight is pre-baked. A funding bill that includes the GOP’s noncitizen voting proposal would never pass the Democratically controlled Senate, meaning the House GOP will ultimately have to drop their policy demand anyway. It’s just a question of when.

“It’s just never been clearer to me that the real division within the Republican conference is between realists and dreamers. I think the realists understand the nature of power in D.C. and the dreamers simply don’t,” said one GOP lawmaker, granted anonymity to speak candidly, who supports initially linking the voting bill to an end-of-year CR but acknowledged it’s unlikely to be the version that becomes law.

Still, members of the right flank aren’t ready to back down just yet. In addition to wanting to link the voting bill, a gambit that other Republicans support, they are also pushing to use the spending legislation to punt the government shutdown deadline into March and are lobbying former President Donald Trump to help pressure their colleagues to agree to that timeline.

But leadership, appropriators and other corners of the conference would rather kick the fight into November or December, hoping to close out the battle this year rather than burden a new president and Congress with the fight next year. Plus, GOP leaders don’t think it’s realistic to expect Senate Democrats to agree to kicking the debate into 2025.

Johnson hasn’t publicly outlined the path forward, yet. But he’s left the door open to linking the funding battle to the voting bill, telling reporters in a recent conference call that House Republicans are “actively discussing the various options” and that the GOP bill, which requires proof of citizenship in order to be registered to vote, is “a big part of this conversation.”

The House Freedom Caucus has taken a formal position to demand that leaders attach the SAVE Act to the stopgap funding bill and extend the government shutdown deadline into next year. Roy argued that Republicans should move quickly the first week back from recess and then “get out of town again” in a bid to jam the Senate, theoretically making the upper chamber choose between passing the House version or allowing a shutdown.

“We need to send the message that we care about the integrity of our elections,” one conservative lawmaker, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said in a brief interview. They also made the case for passing an initial CR that includes the GOP’s voting bill the week of Sept. 9.

But that GOP lawmaker acknowledged that the House would eventually have to pass a spending patch without the voting proposal to secure buy-in from Senate Democrats. They warned “it is not going to be a smart move to try and shut down the government because that was removed.”

Last year, McCarthy was ousted shortly after greenlighting a so-called clean CR that included no conservative policy wins. That same threat isn’t hanging over Johnson, but the funding fight could impact his ability to keep leading the House GOP if the party retains its majority.

Republicans are hoping that Trump’s support for the SAVE Act will help score actual votes from the House’s right flank, who typically don’t support short-term spending bills. Trump has singled out noncitizen voting as an issue leading up to the election, though there are few documented cases of it happening and it’s already banned in federal elections. And he previously pushed Republicans to pass the bill earlier this summer “or go home and cry yourself to sleep.”

Some conservatives have signaled they would support a CR if the SAVE Act is attached, while others have remained on the fence — lending further uncertainty to the GOP’s tight vote count.

Asked if he would support a CR with that voting rider, a spokesperson for Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who forced the vote on McCarthy’s ouster, only said that he is “taking these matters under advisement.” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), when asked if he would vote for it, said he would need to look at it.

On the other side of the GOP, centrists and other governing-minded members are making it clear they’d prefer to pass a clean CR, though they’re not outright threatening to oppose a spending bill linked to the SAVE Act. Some Republicans are also privately warning that trying to attach their own policy priorities opens the door for Democrats to make their own demands, like attaching legislation to bolster the Voting Rights Act.

“I’m hopeful that in the first week back, we’ll get an agreement. We’ll just do a CR and then move forward,” said Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-Ind.). “I support House Republican policy, but I think at this point, attaching it to a CR is not the right thing to do.”

There’s other pressing spending priorities that could find their way into a funding bill. The nation’s disaster relief fund is projected to run almost $2 trillion short in September, and Congress is still sitting on President Joe Biden’s emergency request this summer for an extra $4 billion for disaster recovery and to help rebuild Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge.

House Democrats have signaled for weeks they’ll capitalize on any hijinks with government funding to knock the GOP ahead of Election Day. Democrats see any heightened risk of a government shutdown as playing into their party’s election-year messaging, where they used House GOP chaos to dub themselves the “adults in the room.” And there have been informal bipartisan conversations about funding legislation too, according to a person familiar with the situation. Attaching legislation like the noncitizen voting bill would likely be a nonstarter for most Democrats.

Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, tied the conservatives’ latest funding demands to the controversial policy proposals of the Heritage Foundation, as Trump tries to distance himself from the group’s “presidential transition project.”

“This is simply the latest example of Republicans holding the government hostage to enact their Trump Project 2025 agenda,” DeLauro said in a statement, warning that the plan would “hurt the middle class and the economy.”

Ursula Perano and Caitlin Emma contributed to this report. 

Two men from Europe were charged with “swatting” dozens of members of Congress and other high-ranking public officials in what the Justice Department described as a conspiracy that lasted four years.

Thomasz Szabo, 26, of Romania, and Nemanja Radovanovic, 21, of Serbia, were charged with 34 felony counts for allegedly perpetrating the harassment scheme.

Swatting — a practice in which false 911 calls are placed to trigger a massive police presence at a residence or business — has been a widespread problem in recent years for elected representatives, judges and other prominent officials.

Szabo and Radovanovic targeted 61 public officials and 40 private individuals with swatting attempts, the Justice Department said. The public officials include members of the House and Senate, Cabinet-level executive branch officials, senior officials of federal law enforcement agencies, and state officials. The names of the victims have not been released.

The two defendants also made bomb threats against unnamed businesses, religious institutions and a university, the Justice Department said.

The scheme began in December 2020 and continued until January 2024, according to an indictment unveiled Wednesday by federal prosecutors in Washington D.C.

As political polarization has intensified, members of Congress from both parties have reported being targeted by swatting incidents — including on holidays and during family dinners.

Last year, Rep. Brandon Williams (R-N.Y.) disclosed a “swatting” incident on Christmas.

“Our home was swatted this afternoon,” he wrote on X. “Thanks to the Deputies and Troopers who contacted me before arriving.”

Three days later, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said her two daughters were swatted.

And earlier this year, Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) denounced swatting after she was targeted.

“It is truly alarming that someone would attempt to harass or intimidate me in this way, while also forcing law enforcement to devote resources unnecessarily,” Brown said. “No one deserves this, and it puts so many people at real risk.”

Former Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) retired from Congress this year after an anonymous call was placed to law enforcement falsely claiming that Gallagher had been shot and that his wife and two young daughters were held hostage.

“I signed up for the death threats and the late-night swatting, but they did not. And for a young family, I would say this job is really hard,” Gallagher told reporters.

Members of Congress are not the only public figures who have experienced harassment. Judges, prosecutors and others involved in Donald Trump’s legal battles have experienced swatting, death threats, racist insults and other threats.

“Swatting is not a victimless prank — it endangers real people, wastes precious police resources, and inflicts significant emotional trauma,” said Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, whose office brought the charges against Szabo and Radovanovic.