During last year’s presidential campaign, Joe Biden promised to work “across the aisle to reach consensus” with Republicans in Congress. But so far, we’ve seen no evidence of that, beyond a few bipartisan meetings at the White House that produced no agreement.

So, now Biden is redefining the word “bipartisan.” It’s no longer about making deals with Mitch McConnell, but going over his head, and fashioning policies that appeal to Republican voters themselves.

“If you looked up ‘bipartisan’ in the dictionary, I think it would say support from Republicans and Democrats,” his senior advisor, Anita Dunn, recently told the Washington Post. “It doesn’t say the Republicans have to be in Congress.”

Yes, we are witnessing a bait and switch. During the campaign, Biden’s Democratic rivals called him a dreamer when he said he could make deals with Republicans in Washington. And let’s face it, his critics were correct.

At least two Republicans hoping to unseat Democratic incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy in this year’s election will spar in a pair of public debates.

Former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli and engineer Hirsh Singh both met the criteria to debate at dates to be announced. Ciattarelli is required to participate because he accepted two-for-one matching funds from the state and Singh raised at least $490,000 for his campaign, Election Law Enforcement Commission officials announced this week.

A third GOP hopeful, Phil Rizzo, failed to qualify for the debates but is currently appealing ELEC’s ruling.

The vast majority of Democrats are anxious to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Not so with Republicans, according to a poll released Wednesday.

A Monmouth University Poll found 43% of Republicans said they won’t take a shot in the arm, compared with just 5% of Democrats.

Overall, 1 in 5 Americans, 21%, said they had no plans to be vaccinated, even as the virus continues to spread and new variants are discovered. That was statistically about the same as the 24% who said last month that they would not take the vaccine.

The lower reaches of the Passaic River are toxic.

Heavy industrial pollution through the 19th and 20th centuries left the river-bottom laced with hazardous substances, including carcinogens like dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

It’s a history of pollution that has robbed residents in Newark and surrounding towns of the chance to fully enjoy the river, a fact that once led U.S. Sen. Cory Booker to call the river “New Jersey’s biggest crime scene.” To this day, people are warned against eating any fish or crabs pulled from the Passaic.

Federal efforts to clean up this section of the river, known as the Diamond Alkali Superfund site, have been underway for decades. Now, the next chapter of that work is set to begin.

Following the killings of six Asian Americans in Georgia, Rep. Andy Kim flew to Atlanta to meet with a community already traumatized by the uptick in hate crimes during the coronavirus pandemic.

“One question kept coming, which is, ‘What are you going to do about this?’” Kim, D-3rd Dist., said Tuesday. “That is the demand being made right now, It’s a demand that is justified given the violence and discrimination that the AAPI [Asian American Pacific Islander] community has faced.”

Kim, who had come to Atlanta March 28 with three other Asian-American members of Congress, joined other lawmakers Tuesday at a Capitol press conference called to push legislation designed to make it easier for Asian-Americans to report bias incidents and to help federal and local law enforcement authorities address them.

New Jersey child care providers that have felt the financial pain from the coronavirus pandemic are eligible to apply for $10 million worth of federal aid under a bill Gov. Phil Murphy signed into law Tuesday.

The money is in the form of grants and won’t need to be repaid. It’s one of several relief packages Murphy recently signed into law recently that totals $100 million in federal grants for organizations and businesses crushed financially by the pandemic.

“Child care providers are absolutely critical to New Jersey’s workforce, and the COVID-19 pandemic has hit them especially hard,” Murphy said in a statement. “This legislation will help to ensure that these providers can continue to weather the pandemic and remain open and able to meet the needs of so many New Jerseyans who rely on them.”

President Joe Biden on Monday nominated former New Jersey state Attorney General Anne Milgram as head of the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Milgram, who served as the state’s chief law enforcement officer under Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine from 2007 to 2010, serves as a special counsel for the law firm of Lowenstein Sandler and teaches law at New York University School of Law.

“Anne is a great choice for this extraordinarily important position,” said another former New Jersey attorney general, Chris Porrino, a partner at Lowenstein Sandler. “We look forward to her swift confirmation and continued success in this new role.”