Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) announced Tuesday that he will resign from Congress, after being found guilty on 16 counts in a federal corruption trial last week.
The decision by New Jersey’s senior senator, effective Aug. 20, opens the way for Gov. Phil Murphy to appoint a replacement for the remainder of Menendez’s term. Murphy will be under pressure to appoint a replacement quickly, as a vacant seat threatens Democrats’ slim majority in the Senate during close partisan votes.
“In these closely divided chambers, every vote counts. And you don’t know when you’re going to have a close vote and you’re going to need that vote,” Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, told NJ Spotlight News.
Menendez is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 29 and is facing potentially decades in federal prison. Menendez and his lawyers have vowed to appeal the guilty verdict all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the appeals process cannot start until he is sentenced.
Chris Gramiccioni, a former federal prosecutor, told NJ Spotlight News that any appeal will likely be an “uphill battle” hinging on the interpretation of Article 2 of the Constitution, which Menendez’s lawyers have argued offers him immunity for actions related to his job.
