Credit: (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Republican legislators are renewing calls to update New Jersey’s public pension forfeiture law following the indictment of Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, a former state lawmaker and local elected official now facing federal corruption charges.

A measure seeking to make it easier to strip corrupt officials of their taxpayer-funded pensions from New Jersey previously failed to make it out of the Democratic-controlled state Legislature. Now that bill will soon be reintroduced, said state Sen. Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth).

O’Scanlon cited state pension records that indicate Menendez collects a $1,066.66 monthly pension allowance from the state Public Employees’ Retirement System.

“These payments are funded by taxpayers and rank-and-file public employees alike,” O’Scanlon said. “This is a slap in the face to taxpayers and this reform is long overdue.”

The call to strengthen the current pension forfeiture law is one of many responses by state lawmakers to a three-count bribery and extortion indictment announced against Menendez last month by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Big state election in offing

The indictment comes just weeks before an election that will determine control of the state Legislature; all 120 seats in the Assembly and Senate are on the November ballot.

Menendez, who faces a maximum of 45 years in prison, has pleaded not guilty and is strongly resisting numerous calls to resign, including pleas from Gov. Phil Murphy and other high-ranking fellow Democrats who currently lead the state Legislature.

In recent days, GOP state lawmakers have called for other measures, including a constitutional amendment that would force indicted public officials to be suspended from office pending either acquittal or indictment.

Before becoming a member of Congress in 1992, Menendez served for several years in the state Assembly and Senate. He also served as mayor of Union City in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

O’Scanlon is promising to reintroduce a wide-ranging bill that stalled in the Democratic-controlled state Senate in 2017. That bill sought to expand the list of offenses for which convictions can result in pension forfeiture in New Jersey and also intended to make the law apply to convicted public officials whose benefits were protected under a 2008 law.

‘These payments are funded by taxpayers and rank-and-file public employees alike.’ — Sen. Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth)

Expected to join O’Scanlon on the revived pension forfeiture legislation will be Sen. Ed Durr (R-Gloucester). Durr cited, as another reason to tighten up the pension forfeiture law, New Jersey’s significant unfunded pension liability, accrued as a result of the state’s long-standing practice of skipping full employer pension contributions. That practice was only halted in recent years by Murphy and lawmakers; the state’s current fiscal year budget contributes more than $7 billion to the pension system.

“Our underfunded pension system cannot continue shelling out more cash to crooked politicians who are convicted of bribery and other egregious crimes,” Durr said.

Savings seen in related bill

A fiscal estimate prepared by analysts from the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Service cited potential savings for the state’s various public pension funds if another pending measure in the state Senate seeking to update the pension forfeiture law were enacted.

The precise amount of potential savings from the bill, which has already cleared the state Assembly, was not determined by the OLS fiscal analysts because the “number and timing of forfeitures is unknowable,” according to the fiscal estimate.

The measure, which would require garnishment of a corrupt official’s pension to recover lost funds, among other provisions, has yet to come up for a vote in the state Senate.

When she introduced the Senate version of the legislation last year, lead sponsor Sen. Kristin Corrado (R-Passaic) cited the results of a 2022 investigation by NJ Advance Media that revealed nearly 100 former state, county or local employees were receiving public pensions in New Jersey at the time, despite criminal convictions related to their jobs.

“Public officials need to know when they break the law that they’re putting their entire pension and a comfortable retirement at risk, in addition to any other criminal penalties they might be subject to,” Corrado said at the time.

It’s unclear whether the bill sponsored by Corrado or the legislation O’Scanlon wants to reintroduce will come up for votes later this year when lawmakers reconvene for a lame-duck session following the November election.

A spokesman for the Senate Majority Office declined to comment Tuesday.