WASHINGTON – Senator Bob Menendez has given no sign that he will voluntarily resign from the Senate following his conviction on bribery chargesleaving Democratic senators contemplating an expulsion effort to force him from office.
Although Menéndez, a Democrat from New Jersey, still has six months left in his term, Democrats have made it clear they no longer want him in office. Within minutes of Tuesday’s guilty verdict, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called for his resignation and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, who would nominate Menendez’s replacement, said the Senate should expel Menendez if he refused to resign.
Expulsion, which requires a two-thirds majority, is an extremely rare measure in the Senate. The last time this was seriously considered by the House was nearly 30 years ago, and only 15 senators — almost all during the Civil War — were expelled.
Even so, senators are preparing to move forward.
“He must stand up now and leave the Senate. He must do this, and if he refuses to do this, many of us will, but I will lead this effort to ensure that he is removed from the Senate,” Senator Cory Booker, another Democratic senator from New Jersey, told MSNBC on the night of Tuesday. “This is the right thing to do. This is the only thing to do.”
After a jury found Menendez, 70, guilty of accepting bribes in gold and cash from three New Jersey businessmen and acting as a foreign agent for the Egyptian government, the senator did not comment on his political plans in brief comments as he left the court. But he promised to appeal the verdict.
“I have never violated my public oath. I have never been anything other than a patriot of my country and for my country,” Menéndez told reporters.
It was a familiar refrain from Menendez, who has taken a defiant stance since he was first indicted last September.
While under indictment, Menéndez stepped down as chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee but continued to participate in confidential meetings – a move that angered his fellow senators. And although they ostracized him from the daily functioning of the Senate and more than half of the Senate Democratic caucus called for his resignation, they could do little to force him from office, especially when Schumer maintained that Menendez should have his day in court.
Now that Schumer has urged Menendez to resign, there will be a concerted effort to exert as much pressure as possible on Menendez to voluntarily withdraw. This began on Tuesday, when the Senate Ethics Committee released a statement saying it would “immediately” conclude an investigation into Menendez that began when he was first indicted. The commission also made it clear that the expulsion recommendation to the Senate was under discussion.
However, any individual senator could propose an early vote on Menendez’s expulsion, although that effort could be blocked by an objection from any other senator – including Menendez himself.
That means many in the Senate will likely wait for the ethics committee to release its recommendation.
In the past, a recommendation for expulsion from the panel has been enough for disgraced senators to voluntarily resign. In 1982, the panel recommended that former Senator Harrison A. Williams Jr., a Democrat from New Jersey, be expelled, and he resigned before a vote on the Senate floor. In 1995, Senator Robert W. Packwood, a Republican from Oregon, announced that he would resign just one day after the committee released its recommendation.
“Most people, even most members of Congress, are embarrassed enough to prefer that the latest big news about them not be that they were expelled,” said Josh Chafetz, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center who studied the powers of Congress.
As the November elections approach, Democrats’ desire to rid themselves of a tainted colleague will only grow. Several Democrats in tough re-election races, including Senators Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Jon Tester of Montana and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, have already indicated they support expulsion.
If Menéndez resigns or is expelled, it will be up to Murphy, the Democratic governor, to fill the role. Several prominent New Jersey Democrats called for the nomination of Rep. Andy Kim, who won his party’s nomination for the Senate seat. Kim, a third-term congressman, said Tuesday that he would accept if he were offered the seat.
Kim’s strength in the race knocked Tammy Murphy, the governor’s wife, out of the primary. Tammy Murphy had the support of much of the state’s political establishment, but Kim surpassed her and she dropped out of the race in March.
It is still possible that the governor could appoint his wife to the role, even temporarily, although he ruled out that scenario during a radio interview in October. A spokesman for the governor said Wednesday that he would not comment on possible replacements for Menendez, who had previously said he was running for the seat as an independent.
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Associated Press writer Wayne Parry in Atlantic City, NJ, contributed to this report.
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