All fine and good if you’re exonerated, but if you’re not and somehow your vacated seat ends up in GOP hands, was the bribe worth it? It better have been one big, beautiful, tremendous bribe. I’m talking Rod Blagojevich level. As he said about a certain Senate seat we all recall, “This shit ain’t free”, right?
He’ll likely be exonerated, but only because it’s nearly impossible for a politician to be convicted of bribery, not because he isn’t guilty. Will some Democrat-- Any Democrat really-- please primary him next spring. It shouldn’t be hard for a Democrat who doesn’t stink of outright corruption to win in New Jersey next year. Menendez is one of the few Democrats who could actually lose, though. Also, that fact should be obvious to anyone other than Robert Menendez.
If it takes a 2/3 US Senate vote to remove Menendez, the seat is safe now that Murphy won the election yesterday.
He will be sworn in on January 16.
The great local fear was Christie appointing himself to that Senate seat if Menendez got booted somehow. Whew 
Brilliant photoshopping.
It’s not quite as simple as that. If convicted, and Menendez doesn’t resign, the Senate Republicans will no doubt schedule a vote to evict him, and put political pressure on the Democrats to vote yes. At the very least, it could cause the Dems are great deal of embarrassment.
The best case scenario would be for Menendez to announce his resignation immediately, effective January 16th, but when you’re in legal trouble up to the eyeballs, sometimes the calculation is that quitting one of the top 100 most powerful political positions in the nation is giving up whatever little leverage you have left, so he might not go easily, even if convicted.
Why wouldn’t he appeal a conviction all the way up to the forgiving SCOTUS? Wouldn’t he be able to keep his seat as the appeals process rolls on and on and on?
Thank goodness NJ will now have a Democratic governor, so we don’t have to worry so much about this.
Party matters. I don’t care how “popular” Republican governors are in blue states like Mass and MD, they are still Republicans. It there is a Senate vacancy, they will appoint a member of their own party to fill it, potentially tipping Senate control. This stuff matters. We need to VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS - always and everywhere.
I don’t know. I suppose it depends on the Senate rules.
It was done by somebody smarter than me 