Representative Bill Pascrell Jr., a Democrat from New Jersey who was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1996, died Wednesday, his office announced on X. He was 87 and would have been the oldest member of the House of Representatives if re-elected in November.
“Bill fought until his last breath to return to the job he loved and the people he loved,” the post said. “Bill lived in Paterson his entire life and had an unwavering love for the city he grew up in and served. He now rests in peace after dedicating his life to our great nation of America.”
Pascrell was a veteran of New Jersey politics, dominating his home district of Passaic County. He was known for his combative stance on enforcing tax laws and ensuring “tax fairness” for all income brackets. To achieve that, “everyone has to pull equally,” he said.
Pascrell, an Army veteran and former semi-pro baseball player, was a teenager when his uncle took him to his first town meeting in the city of Paterson, then a mill town with a thriving textile business. The rough political arena left a lasting impression on Pascrell.
“There’s a lot of fistfighting… I’m going to like that,” he recalled in an interview. “It did. I’ve stuck with it since I was 16 years old.”
Although he has experienced far fewer physical clashes between the parties in Congress, Pascrell said he has held on to the lessons he learned during his first contact with politics.
“Follow through or don’t even start,” he said. And when you’re involved in a fight, “never give in.”
In the 118th Congress, Pascrell was the top Democrat on the Committee on Budget Oversight, having previously served as that committee’s chairman for more than two years.
He and his Democratic colleagues on the Ways and Means House scored several victories in the final months of the previous legislative session, including passing a major tax and social spending budget reconciliation bill and, after years of litigation, obtaining six years of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns in the “lame duck” session after 2022.
Pascrell has long campaigned for the taxation of carried interest, a form of compensation for mutual fund managers that is not taxed as ordinary income, calling the situation a loophole that allows wealthy individuals to avoid fair taxation.
He also repeatedly introduced legislation to change inheritance rules. His so-called step-up basis bill would have changed existing tax law so that when someone dies and leaves property, the heir would pay capital gains taxes based on the market rate of the inherited assets, with few exceptions.
Pascrell’s position on the Budget Committee also gave him a platform to fight to reinstate state and local tax deductions that Republicans limited in their 2017 tax law.
The SALT deduction cap hit people in the highest income brackets hardest, but in states with high local property and income taxes like New Jersey, less wealthy families were also hit, so Pascrell framed his tax proposals as if they would benefit the middle class.
Representing a constituency with a strong industrial presence, he was a close ally of unions and ensured that countries trading with the United States adhered to international labor standards.
A recurring bipartisan concern for Pascrell was research and treatment of brain injuries. Inspired by a constituent’s plight, he co-founded the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force in 2001. The issue became even more important after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as more veterans returned from Iraq and Afghanistan with injuries caused by explosive devices.
Pascrell was born in Paterson, New Jersey, where his Italian grandparents settled. His father worked for the railroad. The first member of his family to attend high school, Pascrell was selected as a third baseman, played semi-professional baseball for a team in Clifton, and after finishing high school, tried out for the Philadelphia Phillies in the early 1960s.
During his time in Congress, he spent years sharing his expertise as first base coach for the Democratic baseball team at the annual Congressional Baseball Game.
A graduate of Fordham University, Pascrell was one of the few kids from his neighborhood to go to college. His father had hoped he would become a lawyer, but he chose to major in philosophy instead. Pascrell later worked as a high school history teacher in nearby Paramus.
In 1974, he became director of the Paterson Public Works Department and worked as a campaign worker for Democratic Representative Robert A. Roe and others. He was appointed to the Paterson Board of Education and later elected its president. Pascrell won a seat in the State Assembly in 1987.
From 1990 onwards, he also served as mayor of Paterson. He pursued a law-and-order program and even disrupted the communications of drug dealers by personally ripping out the wires and receivers of pay phones that did not have city approval.
In 1996, Pascrell ran against Representative Bill Martini, who had come to office in the 1994 Republican revolution—ending 34 years of Democratic dominance in the 8th District. Pascrell won a close race and then raised enough campaign funds to dissuade Martini from a rematch.
He easily managed to get re-elected until Paterson was elected to the 9th District in 2012 after a new congressional reassignment. Pascrell had to face Democratic Rep. Steven R. Rothman, who had already served eight terms and saw the 9th District he had represented as his best chance for survival. Their bitter primaries divided the Democratic parties at the national and state levels.
Former President Bill Clinton carried the district and endorsed Pascrell; Rothman, who portrayed himself as a reliable liberal, received the tacit support of President Barack Obama. In the end, Pascrell outperformed Rothman by 22 percentage points and has won comfortably ever since.
Despite his outward toughness, Pascrell had a soft side that he said was somewhat different from his public persona. He loved reading and writing poetry. And in true Italian spirit, he enjoyed playing bocce: “It’s almost as relaxing as poetry.”
