Van Drew is the representative for New Jersey’s 2nd congressional district (view map) and is a Republican (2019-), previously a Democrat (2019-2019). He has served since Jan 3, 2019. Van Drew is next up for reelection in 2024 and serves until Jan 3, 2025. He is 70 years old.
Our work to hold Congress accountable only matters if elections are decided by counting votes. President Trump, his senior government advisors, and Republican legislators collaborated to have the 2020 presidential election decided instead by incumbent politicians running in the very same election. Their attempts to suppress entire state-certified vote counts without adjudication in the courts and using a disinformation campaign of lies and conspiracy theories was a months-long, multifarious attempted coup.
Van Drew was among the Republican legislators who participated in the attempted coup. Shortly after the election, Van Drew joined a case before the Supreme Court calling for all the votes for president in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — states that were narrowly won by Democrats — to be discarded, in order to change the outcome of the election, based on lies and a preposterous legal argument which the Supreme Court rejected. (Following the rejection of several related cases before the Supreme Court, another legislator who joined the case called for violence.) On January 6, 2021 in the hours after the violent insurrection at the Capitol, Van Drew voted to reject the state-certified election results of Arizona and/or Pennsylvania (states narrowly won by Democrats), which could have changed the outcome of the election. These legislators have generally changed their story after their vote, claiming it was merely a protest and not intended to change the outcome of the election as they clearly sought prior to the vote. The January 6, 2021 violent insurrection at the Capitol, led on the front lines by militant white supremacy groups, attempted to prevent President-elect Joe Biden from taking office by disrupting Congress’s count of electors.
![Photo of Rep. Jefferson Van Drew [R-NJ2]](/static/legislator-photos/412796-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Legislative Metrics
Read our 2022 Report Card for Van Drew.
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Van Drew is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot is a member of the House of Representatives positioned according to our ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).
The chart is based on the bills Van Drew has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2019 to Mar 28, 2023. See full analysis methodology.
Committee Membership
Jefferson Van Drew sits on the following committees:
Bills Sponsored
Issue Areas
Van Drew sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:
Government Operations and Politics (25%) Transportation and Public Works (16%) Health (14%) Education (14%) Science, Technology, Communications (11%) Armed Forces and National Security (7%) Immigration (7%) Energy (7%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Van Drew recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.R. 1728: To establish the Agent Orange Veterans Service Medal.
- H.Res. 239: Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that offshore wind projects along …
- H.R. 489: Expedited Removal Codification Act of 2023
- H.R. 220: Advanced Aviation Act
- H.R. 218: Expedited Removal Codification Act of 2023
- H.R. 216: My Child, My Choice Act of 2023
- H.R. 217: Country of Origin Labeling Requirement Act
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Key Votes
Missed Votes
From Jan 2019 to Mar 2023, Van Drew missed 35 of 2,125 roll call votes, which is 1.6%. This is on par with the median of 1.6% among the lifetime records of representatives currently serving. The chart below reports missed votes over time.
We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses, major life events, and running for higher office.
Primary Sources
The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including:
- unitedstates/congress-legislators, a community project gathering congressional information
- The House and Senate websites, for committee membership and voting records
- Office of the Clerk, House of Representatives for the photo
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
