It would be kind of great if the Dems voted for Menendez’s resignation, and the GOPers voted “No.”
There was brief period in the news cycle yesterday where all the TV talking heads and the babbling politicians had to state that Bayonne Bob* was innocent until proven guilty. With that out of the way any reasonable person would think it highly likely that a politician with a stockpile of cash and gold bars was about to go down in flames and nobody wants to be standing too close to him.
He’s clearly guilty as sin but relying on the inadequacy of the laws to save him again. We are not going to easily see a set of laws that holds our representatives to the same standards they write in the law for the rest of us.
*Don’t know if anyone calls him Bayonne Bob. I was trying to call back to Baghdad Bob, but evoked in my own memory Chuck “The Bayonne Bleeder” Wepner who was the real life Rocky (Balboa, not the squirrel).
Since he’s from the Cuban enclave of Union City that doesn’t really work.
Well, nobody gets a vote on his resignation except him. If it did come down to a vote to expel, I could see just enough Republicans voting no so that he stays in office and they can continue to use him as a prop for Democratic corruption.
Eh well. Someone will come with a good moniker for him as the details unravel in this one. He’s really not an analogue for Baghdad Bob, not yet anyway.
He’s known as a tough scrapper like Wepner, but not really an underdog like Rocky. He grew up without great means but portrays himself as some sort of underdog in his political life which I haven’t seen evidence of. More like he’s skillfully played both sides of the aisle, and I have to assume he’s been effective at representing New Jersey in order to stick around this long.
Yeah that’s what I meant to write, “expulsion.”
I can’t see it being terribly effective if the Dems vote to expel him but the GOP keeps him in office. Of course, I’ve gone broke several times underestimating the gullibility of GOP voters.
You got the county right. Bayonne and Union are in Hudson County which is the traditional center of corruption in New Jersey. As Governor Brendan Byrne once said, “When I die I want to be buried in Hudson County so I can remain active in politics.”
The spot this puts the GOP in is if they come out against Menendez, they’d be endorsing the validity of a Biden DOJ investigation. Which goes against their messaging of the Biden DOJ as a corrupt cesspool of politically motivated decision-making (e.g. baselessly prosecuting Trump but offering Hunter Biden a sweetheart deal). Republican Senators are mostly keeping quiet, but the few who have spoken up (Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio) are urging Menendez to fight.
For separation of powers reasons I do not think the Senate should expel a member solely because of an indictment obtained by the executive branch federally or at the state level. Nor for similar reasons do I think they should necessarily expel for a conviction imposed by the judiciary at the same levels.
Senate and House procedures should govern expulsion, and of course in real life scenarios such as this the pressure to resign from other actors will generally act faster than any expulsion process. For those times it doesn’t, though, we have to let it play out rather than leave it up to another branch to decide.
Would you grant a Trump led Justice Department (or any other President’s) the ability to change the composition of the Senate just by indicating selected senators? Indictments aren’t that hard to obtain.
I do not believe that the mere fact of an indictment should lead to an expulsion. The Senate Ethics Committee should immediately conduct its own investigation, and Menendez should be given the opportunity to explain the evidence and charges presented in the indictment. If he can’t, or refuses to do so, then the Senate should follow that committee’s recommendation regarding appropriate action.
But I do not believe that the Senate is bound to wait for a conviction for the same reason you do not believe the Senate is bound to act on an indictment. The judicial proceedings inform, but are separate from, the Senate’s independent responsibility to determine if a member has engaged in conduct that would warrant expulsion.
I looked it up and found out the expulsion from Congress is very rare. There was one in 1797, and a bunch during the Civil War. Since the 1860s there have only been two, both from the House: Michael Myers in 1980, after being convicted of bribery, and Jim Traficant in 2002, also following a bribery conviction.
Well, that murder spree in New Jersey didn’t help matters.
On topic, the FBI is also looking into whether Egyptian intelligence tried to get at Menendez through his wife. I’ve read elsewhere that the senator was known to hold a grudge, so it will be interesting to see who comes forward to help the various probes into his activities.
Expulsion is rare, but that’s partly because it’s common for Senators resign when they’re looking down the barrel of a likely expulsion vote. In 1995, Senator Robert Packwood resigned after the Senate Ethics Committee recommended his expulsion for sexual misconduct and obstructing the committee investigation. He had not been charged with any crime. In 2011, Senator John Ensign resigned ahead of a Senate Ethics Committee report that found there was “substantial and credible evidence” he broke federal laws in an effort to cover up an affair. He had not been indicted for any crime.
One reason for resigning is that it preserves pension rights.
Who needs a pension when your house is teeming with gold bars?
“You’re losing your pension, buster!”
“It’s okay, I’ll manage somehow.”
Scoots a couple of gold bars aside so that he can open his fridge wide enough to get a snack.
Does he get to keep his pension if he goes to prison?
The Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 denies Congressional retirement benefits to Members of Congress who are convicted of bribery, perjury, conspiracy or other related crimes in the course of carrying out their official duties as a Member of Congress. Ironically, Menendez was a cosponsor.
That was pretty ballsy of him to co-sponsor that one. He’s been under a cloud of suspicion for years, I think.
Harry Reid: “I’m introducing this bill that will create new ethics requirements and crack down on corruption in the Senate. Who wants to cosponsor?”
[Every Senator turns to look at Menendez]
Menendez: “What? What? I got nuttin’ to hide. Put me on that, Harry.”