Josh Gottheimer, who often joined Republicans, is seeking Democratic nod for governor

In a display of loyalty not to working families but to the most rapacious corners of the financial industry, Congressman Josh Gottheimer has thrown in his lot with Republicans and Wall Street executives—this time to weaken the very regulatory frameworks designed to prevent another catastrophic banking collapse.

As the Democratic primary for governor heads into its final days, progressive challenger Lisa McCormick is making sure voters don’t forget it.

Gottheimer, a conservative Democrat with a long history of cozying up to big banks and hedge fund managers, joined 225 Republicans in voting for a bill that slashed financial protections enacted after the 2008 economic collapse.

The measure, sold with a deceptive title as the “Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act,” did nothing to protect consumers. Instead, it rolled back the very Dodd-Frank provisions meant to stop the financial sector from playing roulette with the U.S. economy.

This is not ancient history. This is the recent, repeated failure of a Congress that has learned nothing from past calamities.

Just like in 1999, when lawmakers—at the behest of Wall Street lobbyists—passed the Commodities Futures Modernization Act to “regulate” the then-niche derivatives market, today’s Congress has once again chosen to kneel before the financial elite.

The result in the early 2000s was the metastasis of an opaque derivatives industry that spiraled out of control and detonated the global economy in 2008.

The cost: ten million American families lost their homes, tens of millions lost jobs or retirement savings, and Wall Street executives were rewarded with golden parachutes while Main Street got buried under the rubble.

Fast-forward to 2018, when Gottheimer lent his vote to a bill that deregulated mid-sized banks—exactly the class of financial institutions whose reckless behavior brought us to the brink of disaster again just a few years later.

When Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic collapsed, they became the second, third, and fourth largest bank failures in American history. They were deregulated by Gottheimer’s vote.

Had regulators not scrambled to bail out uninsured depositors and forestall panic, the U.S. financial system might have entered free fall—again. This wasn’t a random coincidence. It was the natural result of gutting the rules that were working, just to make Wall Street richer and more dangerous.

Lisa McCormick, the only Democrat to challenge disgraced former US Senator Bob Menendez in 2018, has called out Gottheimer’s pattern of betrayal.

“He’s Donald Trump’s favorite Democrat for a reason,” said McCormick. “While families struggle to pay rent, while student debt crushes a generation, and while Americans wonder whether they’ll ever retire, Gottheimer is making sure the wealthiest banks are free to gamble with your future.”

Indeed, the Congressman has made a name for himself as a defender of billionaires and corporate bottom lines.

Between his prolific stock trades and his votes to liberate banksters from what he derisively calls “red tape,” Gottheimer seems he would be more at home in a Goldman Sachs boardroom than a union hall.

He’s played the role of obstructionist within his own party, helping derail efforts to tax the ultra-rich, cap prescription drug prices sooner, or provide debt relief to working-class families—all while wrapping himself in a flag of “bipartisanship” that only seems to fly when billionaires are under threat.

What’s at stake now is not just a primary. It’s a test of whether the Democratic Party will continue to harbor operatives like Gottheimer—who talk like centrists but vote like capitalists—or whether it will finally stand with the people it claims to represent. McCormick’s warnings are not hypothetical.

History has already rendered its verdict. Every time Congress has loosened its grip on Wall Street in the name of “innovation,” Americans have paid the price in evictions, unemployment, and shattered savings.

And yet, here we are again.

As the financial sector basks in trillion-dollar profits and the political class lines up for campaign donations, the rest of the country is left wondering: How many more times must we learn this lesson before we stop electing politicians who sell us out to the highest bidder?

In Josh Gottheimer’s case, the answer is simple: too many.