Bonnie Watson Coleman

When former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made headlines around the country this month by announcing her planned retirement, New Jersey Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman thought of sending her prominent colleague a memo.

The six-term congresswoman from Central Jersey envisioned filling out the “Re.” — shorthand for “In reference to” — line with “Nancy, me, too!”

“My staff said, “'No, you can do your own,'" Watson Coleman said with a laugh, in her home in Ewing on Nov. 14.

But Watson Coleman’s announcement did send shock waves of surprise through the New Jersey political establishment, in part because of her relatively short, decade-long stint in Congress, and also because the 80-year-old progressive firebrand seemed to be energized and battle-ready. Earlier this year, she thrust herself into the middle of a controversial protest outside the Delaney Hall immigration detention center, for example.

Watson Coleman, the first Black woman elected to Congress from New Jersey, said she had been mulling her departure in discussions with family since her last election in 2024, and that she had pretty much made up her mind last spring but didn’t want to drop a news bomb in the middle of the primary for governor.

“I didn't care if my story didn't get carried," said Watson Coleman, who began her ascent in politics nearly 30 years ago when she was elected to the state Assembly to represent a Mercer County-based district once held by her late father, John Watson.

“This is my personal decision. I'm making it. I think it's right to make. And if it gets responded to, it gets responded to," she told me. "And if it doesn't, it doesn't.”

She will leave after her current term expires in January 2027.

Frustrated — and angry about our politics

But as she discussed her career in an hour-long interview, it was clear that the decision was fueled, in part, by frustration with a broken political system, one in which responsible gun control measures are thwarted despite broad public support for them; a system that allows President Donald Trump to thrive and terrorize members of his own party and demolish long-cherished institutions. It's a system where bipartisanship is a quaint notion of the past.

That frustration has boiled into anger. Watson Coleman, who was the first Black woman to lead the Democratic State Committee before launching her bid for Congress in 2015, says she is perfectly cordial to Republican members who live in her apartment building.

But as soon as they get over to the House and onto the floor, “that cordiality goes out the chute,” she said.

“To be perfectly honest, I don’t spend a lot of time with Republicans because I’m sick of them," she said.

Some of that fury is rooted in a keen sense of history of the struggle for political, social and economic stability for African Americans.

When she entered Congress as an idealistic newcomer in 2016, Watson Coleman admitted to being starstruck by the late Georgia Rep. John Lewis, the respected civil rights pioneer and survivor of Selma who urged next-generation activists to cause “good trouble," the rally cry for civil disobedience.

Her first year, she found herself caught up in the House Democrats' outrage when the Republican leadership blocked a vote on gun restrictions after the infamous shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The majority Republicans recessed the chamber and had the cameras turned off. Lewis then started his “sit-in,” and others followed and live-streamed the event on their phones.

Since then, she has witnessed the Republican opposition morph into the Cult of Trump. The GOP routinely enables and indulges this “evil, greedy lunatic” in some of his most egregious excesses, she said, bringing the country to the brink of a dictatorship.

“I see all the elements of it. The weaponizing of government. Punitive actions against people that you don't like what they said. Trying to shut down the media for printing the truth. Sending masked, armed people into communities, mostly Democratic communities, where you find more minorities," Watson Colman said.

She acknowledged that the frustration with a broken Congress was a factor in her decision to depart. But she also takes pride in her work. She is one of the most progressive voices in Congress and has used her seat to advance mental health awareness for Black teenagers. But with the proposed legislation, which came from an emergency task force on the topic that she chaired, many suggestions did not become law, Watson Coleman said.

She has long been an advocate for universal health care and was one of the first to call for a ceasefire amid the Israeli-Gaza conflict. She has used her pulpit to promote criminal justice reform and an expansion of paid family leave and to seek a ban on discrimination based on hairstyle choices. She also advocated the banning of private prisons.

Congressional Democrats are aging

Watson Coleman's announced departure, just days after the Pelosi news, comes at a time when congressional Democrats are facing increased criticism that the party has become too top-heavy with old members who have lost touch with the demands of a younger, more activist grassroots base. There are 30 House Democrats over the age of 70 — compared with 10 Republicans.

“I don’t think age and competence is an issue," Watson Coleman said, noting that Pelosi, who is 85, remains “sharp as a tack.” But she noted that her successor will be younger “than me, and that’s cool.”

“You want somebody to grow into [the job] to be around long enough to define their priorities and to work in a space that their district needs," she said.

The 12th Congressional District represents a broad, complicated swath of Central Jersey, bracketed by two Democratic cities, Trenton to the south and Plainfield to the north, with large suburban enclaves like Monroe Township, Plainsboro and Princeton wedged between. Brad Cohen, the mayor of East Brunswick, and Shanel Robinson, a Somerset County commissioner, have already jumped into the race. Others are exploring possible candidacies.

Watson Coleman doesn’t plan to endorse anyone, but she added, “I pray” that the candidate who wins the Democratic nomination “carries on some of the same values as it relates to government's responsibility and the spaces that I think are important here in this country and internationally.”

Charlie Stile is a veteran New Jersey political columnist. For unlimited access to his unique insights into New Jersey’s political power structure and his powerful watchdog work, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.