Congress honors October 7 hostages and victims with gold medal
H.R. 5715 — October 7 Gold Medal Act · Filed by Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) · 22 cosponsors · Introduced Oct 8, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill authorizes Congress to award a collective Congressional Gold Medal to American hostages and victims of the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, recognizing their suffering and sacrifice. The Secretary of the Treasury will design and strike the medal; the original will be displayed at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, and duplicate bronze medals may be sold to recover costs.
Why we flagged it
This is a straightforward Congressional Gold Medal bill, a routine commemorative measure honoring victims and hostages of a specific terrorist attack. It contains no policy changes, regulatory provisions, or appropriations beyond the self-funding medal production.
What the text implies
- The bill specifies display at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, a private institution, rather than a federal museum—the medal becomes a permanent artifact in a specific private collection rather than a federal archive.
- Duplicate bronze medals may be sold commercially; the bill does not cap the number or price, potentially creating an open-ended commemorative merchandise stream.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
This is a commemorative measure honoring victims and hostages of a terrorist attack, with no direct cost to citizens or restriction of rights. The medal recognizes suffering and sacrifice; the duplicate sales mechanism is self-funding through the U.S. Mint Public Enterprise Fund, not taxpayer appropriation.
Who stands to gain
- U.S. Mint (cost recovery through Public Enterprise Fund)
- Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History (receives and displays the original medal)
Named in the bill
U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, Secretary of the Treasury, U.S. Mint, U.S. Mint Public Enterprise Fund, Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, Hamas, Israel, American hostages, October 7, 2023 attacks
Where it stands
22 cosponsors: 19 Democrats, 3 Republicans.
- Oct 8, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Oct 8, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Financial Services · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Financial Services”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
5 lobbying clients named this bill on 9 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $5,210,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 36 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 78% of bills with at least one filing.
Josh Gottheimer, the sponsor, reported $1,000,800 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Rai Services Company — $3,850,000 on 2 filings
- Anti-defamation League — $590,000 on 2 filings
- J Street — $340,000 on 2 filings
- Fdd Action — $290,000 on 1 filing
- Rai Services Company — $140,000 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (4,560 characters) on Jun 3, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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