The End of Bob Menendez's Career

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ)

I was watching my best friend get married yesterday (and was very happily preoccupied), so we're going to be about two-thirds of the way through a seismic political scandal, one that has been a long-time coming but saw a huge change in the past 48 hours.  Given how the scandal is progressing, quite frankly, it's possible we're going to have way more information in the next week, but let's weigh in (for now), on my thoughts on the Sen. Bob Menendez scandal which could upend New Jersey politics, and get rid of the most controversial member of the current Democratic Senate caucus once-and-for-all.

Menendez has held office in New Jersey since the late-1980's, when he was mayor of Union City, and became a member of the state legislature before moving to the US House in 1993.  In 2006, when Sen. Jon Corzine became Governor of New Jersey, he was appointed to the US Senate after flirting for runs for the chamber in 1996 & 2000, and has been there ever since, putting in underwhelming performances in his 2006 & 2018 election bids, but never losing.  

His tenure in the Senate has been a mix of "generic Democrat" and occasional consternations on key issues.  He's a progressive activist on immigration law, in particular, one of the most ardent supporters of the DREAM Act, but he voted for the Secure Fence Act of 2006 (which became a Republican rallying cry years later, and ended up being a giant waste of money).  While he is a liberal on gun rights, gay rights, & abortion, his views on foreign policy have been a frustration to many Democrats.  He did not support the Iran Nuclear Deal, and his views on Cuba are very restrictive.  Both of these issues made Menendez a thorn-in-the-side of President Obama's second term, as the former president tried to create a more structured relationship with both countries.  There's going to be a lot of talk in the coming days about what Menendez leaving office will mean for the Democratic Party (if he leaves), but since a committee chair cannot serve if under indictment, Menendez handing that position over (likely to Ben Cardin or Jeanne Shaheen) will have a profound impact on US-Cuba relations during the Biden years if the president wants to pursue changes to that relationship.

But it wasn't Menendez's views on foreign policy that made him unpopular with large swaths of the Democratic base (I have name-checked him for years, at least until Kyrsten Sinema showed up, as the worst member of our Senate Democratic caucus, and actually said he should resign in 2015), but instead his issues with corruption.  Allegations of corruption go back for decades with Menendez, who has given off the image of the "boss" of Hudson County politics in New Jersey for years.  In his 2006 Senate campaign, he was accused of renting out properties to organizations that received federal cash (a no-no for a sitting senator), and in 2013 he was indicted on multiple counts of bribery, fraud, and making false statements in connection to advocating (in an official capacity) for a donor.  He was accused of essentially taking luxury treatment (like access to a private jet) for securing visas for a high-profile donor.  The Trump administration eventually dropped the charges not because they thought he wasn't guilty, but because the Supreme Court case McDonnell vs. the United States made pursuing federal bribery charges against a public figure very, very hard.  Due to the (anti-democratic) rules that give county parties a uniquely large ability to shape who wins a primary (it's complicated, but essentially if you aren't supported by a county boss you go on another line, and in the process it's harder to get support), Menendez stayed on in 2018, but he ended up having an underwhelming performance against a no-name challenger.

This week, Menendez was implicated on a fresh round of indictments, ones that feel much more likely to stick.  The most damning of reports include the allegations that Menendez and his wife Nadine received hundreds of thousands of dollars (including a $100k gold bar), in the process giving out sensitive US government information to the Egyptian government.  He's also accused of using his position as a US Senator to pressure New Jersey prosecutors to drop cases against two of his friends, both of them donors and people who have given Menendez & his wife access to high-dollar gifts.

Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ)

The reaction to this has been swift, and while not yet universal, very telling.  In the past, Menendez's position as maybe the most powerful man in New Jersey politics had saved him, and most of the party rallied behind him.  This hasn't been the case with the new round of indictments.  So far six members of the US House delegation from New Jersey (Donald Norcross, Andy Kim, Josh Gottheimer, Mikie Sherrill, Frank Pallone, & Bill Pascrell) have all called for his resignation, as has the state's governor (Phil Murphy).  As of right now, only one of Menendez's Democratic Senate colleagues (Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman) has called for his resignation, but it's hard not to see that ballooning in the coming days.  Names to watch for include Joe Biden (who served with Menendez in the Senate before he became Vice President), Chuck Schumer, and Menendez's fellow New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, as they would be the biggest power-players in this conversation.  

Menendez has been defiant so far, stating that he will not resign and that he will run for reelection (he also made a comment about this being an attack on him because he's Latino, which is going to go down as one of the stupider post-scandal tactics I've seen in a while), but Rep. Norcross's (whose brother George rivals Menendez for being one of the chief power brokers in New Jersey, and has generally been a long-time supporter of the senator) call for a resignation has, in particular, made the end inevitable for Menendez.  Already, Rep. Andy Kim has stated that he will run against Menendez in a primary.  Kim's decision to do so is probably to get ahead of the power-brokers in the state coalescing around someone else, as he is not someone that I think the party politics would've automatically backed (Mikie Sherrill seemed more likely), and wanting to become a consensus candidate to beat Menendez, because a splintered primary could hurt the ability to beat him.  But if Kim gets in, others, like Sherrill, will explore the bid as well (Menendez's son Rob is a sitting congressman, and in a different world would've been the expected successor to his dad, but that seems unlikely given the circumstances even if he is not implicated in any of the indictments).  

Sherrill or Kim would both be safe in 2024, and honestly any Democrat other than Menendez (who would also be a favorite, albeit one more at risk) in holding the seat, but it's still incredible how quickly the Democratic Party pushed back on Menendez.  This is partially due to his long history of corruption (I'm not surprised by this, and honestly the phrase "good riddance" will be uttered by me when he's gone), but also because of the party's 2024 campaign.  The Democrats cannot afford to have to defend Menendez when they're going after Donald Trump on corruption.  There's no point to giving the GOP a "but what about Menendez?" counter, and honestly Menendez on the ticket makes winning back NJ-7, a swing seat Biden won but went red in 2022, impossible.  Menendez is not worth losing a swing House seat, and he's certainly not worth giving up Joe Biden's best card against Donald Trump in 2024.  He must go because these charges are damning and unfitting of a US Senator...but he also has to go because he's a distraction in an election we don't need any.