After calls to resign, Senator Menendez said “I am not going anywhere.” As a result, I feel compelled to run against him. Not something I expected to do, but NJ deserves better. We cannot jeopardize the Senate or compromise our integrity. Please join me:https://t.co/QFIaMsgJc9
— Andy Kim (@AndyKimNJ) September 23, 2023
Bound to be lots more about Kim’s campaign to discuss by Monday, but here’s something good to celebrate now!
What ‘we’ said about Andy Kim in 2018: Andy Kim for NJ-03
In 2021: Thursday Morning Open Thread: Cleaning Up After the Looters
In 2022: Excellent Read: What Rep. Andy Kim Saw, After the Insurrection
NJ Democratic Rep Andy Kim will run against Bob Menendez next year in the wake of senator’s indictment & refusal to step down.
Kim represents NJ's 3rd Dist in Congress; he was reelected last November by more than 10 percentage points.#ProudBlue #DemVoice1 https://t.co/PLdjGswijA— Tommasina Says Prosecute Insurrectionists NOW 💙🌻 (@TommasinaResist) September 23, 2023
I don’t know a lot but I do know that how your staff talks about you says more about your leadership than almost anything you actually do ever will.
Andy Kim’s staff *really* loves him.
— tré easton (@treeaston) September 23, 2023
Andy Kim is taking on Menendez for the Senate, and he's a much stronger candidate for Democrats. Here's my Senate Forecast projection:
For Kim:
Margin: D+17.8%
Chance to Win: 92% D, 8% RFor Menendez:
Margin: D+7.8%
Chance to Win: 75% D, 25% R https://t.co/DAzHYYzMac— Logan Phillips (@LoganR2WH) September 23, 2023
NotoriousJRT
Menendez may be going from the Senate to the (big) house.
Tom Levenson
I’m guessing Menendez may have a come-to-FSM moment soon when the prosecutors lay out the case against him and his wife and give him a choice where resigning right now gets him and her a meaningful benefit in the face of lots of potentially real-prison time.
A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno)
Thank God!! When this news first broke, I was like “Isn’t he already in prison?, if not – why not?”. We’ve been hearing about his corruption pretty much since he entered the Senate; how has he been hanging on all this time?
ETA: Yeah – I know, New Jersey, but still …
Ken
@Tom Levenson: Can prosecutors offer that sort of deal? To me, “resign and we’ll reduce the charges” seems seems outside the sort of deals you usually hear about. Though I realize this situation doesn’t come up all that often.
Jackie
I love Andy Kim! For no other reason than he taking it upon himself to help clean the Capitol floor of urine and feces after the Insurrection J6.
I think NJ has a great slate of Democrats willing to Primary Menendez, and I’m sure NJ will choose the best one.
NotMax
Kim? Possible.
;)
wjca
@Ken: Somehow, “resign and we’ll reduce charges” seems very like politicizing the judicial system.
NotMax
@wjca
::cough:: Spiro Agnew ::cough::
Alison Rose
He’s only 41 years old, too, so if he gets in, he’ll be there for a good amount of time. And he was the first Democratic congressperson of Korean descent, which seems wild. (ETA: By “wild” I mean the idea that he was the first, and also very recently, is one of those things that seems like it shouldn’t be true in 2023.)
Pretty kick-ass bio too:
eclare
@Jackie:
Yeah, I remember Kim making the news for cleaning up after Jan 6. I hope he can clean up the Senate by beating Menendez.
Righteous Hazard
Hell yeah.
In the days and weeks after 1/6, I was in real danger of becoming in a permanent state of anger and rage. Which, while it was a totally justified reaction to seeing the Capital sacked by a bunch of traitors, was not a state that I needed to be in. I have seen what permanent rage does to Fox viewers, and I wouldn’t want to become a leftist version of those morons.
Then one day, I saw the images of Kim, on his hands and knees, cleaning the Capital. In addition to just being the kind of stone-cold badass who responds to evil shit by being fucking awesome, Kim showed me, and others like me, that anger wasn’t the only way to go.
Where do I send the check?
eclare
@Righteous Hazard:
That’s a great lesson. I hope he gets a lot of support, I suspect he will.
Redshift
@Ken: During recent similar discussions, I read that DOJ guidelines allow them to include resignation in a plea deal only in public corruption cases. I suppose the idea is if someone is pleading guilty, it’s in the public interest to get them out of office.
The context may have been that a deal with TFG where he would drop out of the race wouldn’t be allowed.
Geminid
I like Andy Kim, but if Rep. Mikie Sherill runs I think she’ll win.
Both Kim and Sherill are members of the House Class of 2018. That is a very talented bunch, and now they are preparing to move up to higher office. Elissa Slotkin will likely be Michigan’s next Senator, and Katie Porter has a shot at being California’s.
Abigail Spanberger has let Virginia Democrats know that she will run for Governor in 2025. She is waiting until after the legislative elections to make a formal announcement. I think Spanberger will almost certainly be Virginia’s next Governor, and its first female one.
And I can’t leave out Deb Haaland, who has been doing valuable work as Secretary of the Interior.
Jackie
@eclare: 👍🏻😁
Yutsano
“My baby’s all grown up and saving
ChinaNew Jersey!”Righteous Hazard
On Menendez, I have a theory.
I think that the high ups in DOJ are finally starting to get clued in to the fact that corruption in high offices is a bad thing. The fact that some guys are basically on the take has been an inconvenient truth since forever, but the enforcement agencies always have to be careful about picking their battles.
Trump changed all that. The fact that a dude like that could crime his way through life and escape consequences by having dirt on dirty politicians is how things have always worked. But I don’t think any high ups at DOJ ever thought that a dude like trump could get pushed over the top and into the presidency by someone like Putin. Garland and his guys are finally seeing that if government doesn’t establish a certain level of minimal corruption hygiene, Trump is just the beginning.
So Menendez skated once, but he is clearly one of the types of dirty pols that guys like Trump have always fed on, so they kept up the scrutiny. Predictably, the dude simply could not keep the gold bars from falling out of his pockets.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: Abigail Spanberger is my #2 generator of political text pitches after Joe Biden himself. She certainly has an effective operation for hitting up her donors.
Ivan X
Corruption! Both sides!
mvr
Mendenez is toast in any general election. But we do have to worry about the next few weeks with shutdowns and such. My hope is that someone is negotiating an exit for him in the next month or so without making it easier for the House to fuck over a lot of people who depend on the federal government.
Uncle Cosmo
I wouldn’t be all that sure. Assuming Menendez runs for re-election, a crowded primary field might allow him to win the nomination with much less than 50%. It’s only been a couple of days since the story broke and already two candidates (Kim and Sherrill) are looking to jump in; who knows how many more will join them?
Hell, I wouldn’t put it past a dirtbag like Menendez to arrange for a few locally popular pols to file for the nomination hoping to siphon off enough support for his major challengers to permit him to squeak on through with a slim plurality.
RaflW
@Righteous Hazard: I don’t think this played much if any role in DoJ’s decisions, but I think there’s a manner in which DoJ indicting a Democratic senator also sends a signal to moderates who tire of all the RW malarky to say “See, Biden’s administration does go after people ‘on the same team’.” It should, for normal people anyway, help waft away the ‘weaponizing the government’ charge.
I think it’s also telling that so far, Republicans haven’t really made much of a fuss about Menendez. They’re kind of in a corruption corner … not that it stops them from making outlandish ‘corruption’ claims about Biden.
YY_Sima Qian
I will be rooting for Andy Kim!
Jackie
@Uncle Cosmo: I refuse to accept your negativity. Menendez is toast and a great Democrat will replace him.
Villago Delenda Est
Andy Kim’s announcement is great news. Fetterman has called on Menendez to resign outright. Fetterman is right. Menendez is a crook, not as bad as TFG, but still a crook.
Kent
If Menendez doesn’t go away, the state Dem establishment needs to fucking rally around one preferred candidate in opposition to Menendez
If it is an open primary without Menendez then they can let things play out.
wjca
Perhaps it’s because they have no problem with real corruption. It’s someone who isn’t corrupt** who bothers them. That isn’t how their world works.
** Or, as they may see it, far better than they are at hiding it. Because they are sure everybody must be as corrupt as they are. Yet they somehow can’t find evidence in Biden’s case. Which must be enormously aggravating.
Righteous Hazard
@RaflW: I agree, with the DOJ needing to show bipartisan prosecutorial zeal, Menendez picked a bad time to have coconspirator fingerprinted gold bars grifting around in his pockets.
And my theorizing is probably wishful thinking anyways. But it remains true that Trump exposed the acute national security risk that corruption enables. I really hope that DOJ has internalized the lesson, because we are nowhere near out of the woods.
sab
@Alison Rose: Immigration from east Asia was restricted in the late 19th and early 20th century. West coast had Chinese and Japanese from the late 19th century, but then immigration froze. Immigration for east Asians wasn’t really opened up until 1965. Chinese were allowed in in 1943, Koreans not until later.
In other words, they haven’t been allowed in until very recently, so it is not surprising it took this long for political participation, especially outside of Hawaii.
Alison Rose
@Righteous Hazard:
Hey, who among us has not…
Joey Maloney
@Ken: That’s exactly the deal Spiro Agnew got back in the day. For resigning and promising never to seek public office again, he was allowed to plead to a single count of tax evasion with no prison time recommended
Edit: NotMax got there much sooner.
gwangung
@sab: More precisely, the immigration for Chinese was set at 105 per year until 1965. Not 105 thousand…105 period.
TheMightyTrowel
*attempting to remain pseudonimous* i spent a few years in the same social and academic circles as andy kim (and pete b for that matter). in my experience, andy is one of the most genuine and thoughtful people in any gathering. watching his career progress has been a joy.
Baud
@TheMightyTrowel:
I think you mean Andy K and Pete B were in the same social and academic circles as you.
Joey Maloney
I’m trying to keep in mind that SCROTUS has so narrowed the bribery statutes that unless the state has video of Menendez saying, “Thank you for giving me these gold bars so that I can corruptly vote your preference on legislation,” it’s going to be a tough charge to make stick. Tax evasion by comparison should be a slam-dunk.
Jeffg166
Kim was my first thought as to whom Murphy should appoint to the seat when Menendez resigned. I was surprised Menendez was still in the senate after his last brush with questionable ethics.
Betty Cracker
I didn’t know anything about Kim until I read this thread. Now I’m rooting for him — he sounds like the perfect person to replace the corrupt creep.
lowtechcyclist
@A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno):
Jan had told him many times
“It was you to me who taught
In Jersey, anything’s legal
As long as you don’t get caught”
-Wilburys, “Tweeter and the Monkeyman”
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: While she has not yet announced her plans, New Jersey Rep. Mikie Sherill could be as a good a replacement for the shabby Senator as Rep. Kim. Sherill’s resume as reported in her Wikipedia biography is impressive.
Reps. Kim and Sherill were both members of the talented House Class of 2018, and flipped Republican districts that year.
eversor
@Kent:
The establishment is currently rallying around Menedez.
Betty Cracker
@eversor: Who besides Schumer?
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: She sounds promising too. Gov. Murphy will have a tough choice to make if Menendez resigns and he has to appoint an interim senator. Menendez says he’s not going anywhere, but that could change. It’s in Dems’ interest to get him out ASAP, and there are probably ways to turn up the heat, both savory and unsavory.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah, NJ seems to have too many good Dems to put up with Menendez. If nothing else, hopefully primary voters will give him the boot.
eversor
@Betty Cracker:
There have been a few other voices and not that many have rushed out to push him out. Also Schumer is the majority leader. To push Menendez out Schumer, Harris, and Biden would all have to come out and demand he resign. They’re not going to do that. Even if they did Menendez probably wouldn’t.
The Democrats will do nothing but circle the wagons and ignore the issue with others voicing support for poor old Bob. If the DOJ doesn’t take him out he’s going to win his primary and this will all go away until he gets his hand caught in the cookie jar again. At which point rinse repeat.
The parties don’t give a fuck about corruption. And corruption along the eastern seaboard is so rampant and constant it’s a punch line. Like governors in Illinois getting hauled off to prison. We’ll crucify someone for getting on the wrong side of a social/cultral issue fast as fuck but we don’t give a damn about stealing and grifting. We’ll drum out Al Franken over a hit job in a nano second because that was cultural. We’ll keep Menendez because that’s just money.
Welcome to the party!
Baud
@eversor:
So in response to a call for evidence, you provide none. Instead, you write out a long yarn about Democrats like Fox News would. Telling.
Betty Cracker
@eversor: I’ll ask again: who besides Schumer?
The NJ governor and House delegation have called for resignation. Booker has said nothing. Since there’s a DOJ investigation, it’s probably best if the president and VP stay mum. I’m not seeing this groundswell of establishment support you’re alleging.
Eyeroller
@Baud: And, as several commenters here have already pointed out, Schumer needs Menendez to remain at least mostly in the tent for now. We don’t have spare votes, especially with Manchinema in the. mix.
Betty Cracker
@Eyeroller: Evaluating the situation in terms of which approach would cause more harm to the party and its agenda, I’d argue the greater danger would lie in NOT kicking Menendez to the curb. Eversor isn’t the only cynic who thinks both parties are equally corrupt. Well, here’s a chance to push back on that — we should take it.
I don’t see how anyone could read that indictment and think it’s a good idea to issue a statement like Schumer did. It was cowardly and gross.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t disagree about public perception, but if Schumer wants to be able to cajole Menendez to resign, he probably has to play up to him now. If he’s aggressive out of the gate, then more likely that Menendez remains obstinate.
I recall a story about how Schumer was kind to McCain about his illness, and that helped convince McCain to save Obamacare.
Just spitballing.
eversor
@Baud:
Are you asserting that Schumer is not the majority leader, not the establishment, and that when he speaks he is not speaking for the Democrats in the senate or the establishment? That a freshman senator like Fetterman spoke out doesn’t matter in comparison.
Everyone has known about this stuff for years. It’s not the first time Menendez has been in hot water for this type of shit and yet he’s still around!
I want Menendez out. This is the last thing we need now. But I also have no faith this time will be any different than the last times this happened.
Baud
@eversor:
Schumer is not the Establishment. He’s one piece of the Establishment. If you meant Schumer, you should have said Schumer. When you said Establishment, you were being deliberately misleading. Just like Fox News.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Betty Cracker: I thought I saw a post from Adam Schiff calling for resignation.
ETA: Here it is
Geminid
@eversor: Menendez is on his way out and the only a question is when. So for me, this is a transitory process problem of little practical consequence.
Geminid
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I’m sure Adam Schiff means what he says, but would I note that he is running for Senate. I expect Reps. Porter and Lee will soon call for the resignation of Menendez also, if they have not already.
eversor
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t think the parties are equally corrupt at all. Team R is much more corrupt and worse. So don’t read this as a “both sides” thing.
However the eastern seabord is notoriously corrupt. Especially in the NJ and NY area. So much so it’s more a running gag and when another area attempts corruption it’s amature hour compared to the silly that happens on the east coast. Shit we take pride in it! So that the leader of the senate, legistlative democratic establishment, also from the same notorious area, the senator from Wall Street, rushed out to defend him is so predictable you could set your watch to it. Again, this ain’t the first time Menendez has been in trouble for this sort off thing and he’s still there.
There are a lot of areas where corruption is a sport. It never changes.
Uncle Cosmo
Refuse all you want if it makes you feel good – as King Canute demonstrated commanding the tide, your refusal will make exactly no difference. The voters of Noo Joyzee will decide in the end.
But if you’re going to stick with that attitude, you should probably be prepared to have your heart broken by those same voters. Electoral politics is a dirty game, and anyone who’s been around as long as Menendez (who FTR is already playing the “poor oppressed minority” card in his own defense) arguably knows how to play it far better than either of us.
eversor
@Baud:
Schumer is in charge of the senate democrats. Period. He speaks for them. Period.
That a bunch of back benchers are grandstanding on this isn’t relevant when the people who matter either support him or circle the wagons. IIRC we were back in this situation in 2017. What changed? Not a fucking thing. So we do not actually care about this stuff.
Betty Cracker
@eversor: Let’s roll the tape.
Dems who have called for Menendez to resign:
Dems who have urged Menendez to remain in office:
Dems who have put out a mealy-mouthed statement faintly praising Menendez and saying we should wait for the case to work its way through the justice system:
Baud
@eversor:
No matter how many times you say period, you lied. Schumer speaks for Schumer in his role of managing the Senate. You can disagree with his approach, but collective guilt against Dems is Republican thing.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Governor Murphy is the one who counts most in this matter. Menendez doesn’t care what Adam Schiff says about him.
eversor
@Betty Cracker:
So a bunch of people who don’t count VS a person who does count and where are Harris and Biden on there? Also only Schumer actually speaks for the establishment as a group. The others there don’t.
Again. We went through this before with him. Most recently in 2017 and not a thing happened and he won his primary in 2018 by a huge margin.
eversor
@Baud:
I apply collective guilt to Republicans for McConnell and coach Tommy I’ll do the same for my time. I’m not above taking my own medicine on these things.
Uncle Cosmo
@Jackie: Furthermore, posts above state that both Kim and Sherrill flipped their districts by defeating GOP incumbents. So if both jump into the Senatorial primary, there is a yoooooge electoral risk:
In the worst case, Menendez squeaks through to renomination with a thin plurality when his primary opponents divvy up the opposing voters, then gets crushed in the general, while Kim’s and Sherrill’s districts revert to Thuglicans. Net loss, one seat in the Senate and two in the House.
That ought to give pause to you and every other good Democrat. For myself, I hope that DOJ pulls a Law&Order-style fast one** on him, e.g., letting him walk on the straightforward corruption charges if he resigns, then nailing him on tax evasion so his sorry arse rots in stir for the rest of his life.
** I’m thinking of the case where the DA offers a Russian thug immunity from prosecution in New York County but then charges him for crimes committed outside said county, which is only Manhattan. And the DA says to him, at the end, “You should have gotten a better lawyer!”
Betty Cracker
@eversor: You said “establishment” when you meant “Chuck Schumer.” Next time, just say “Chuck Schumer” to avoid future misunderstandings. The party apparatus in New Jersey, which is included in “the establishment” in any rational definition of the word, is for Menendez’s ouster.
That last point is illustrated nicely by the 2018 incident. I agree Menendez should have been kicked to the curb then — he’s a crook. But he hadn’t lost “the establishment.” Now he has
ETA: As I said at #46, POTUS and VPOTUS, as members of the executive branch, should arguably remain mum since the DOJ is still actively investigating the case. I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know what their obligations are here, but it may be a separation of powers thing.
Geminid
This has been a slow weekend for news (unless you count Bosphorus ship-spotting news!). But even if the next one is a slow news weekend, I suspect people here aren’t gonna still be talking about Menendez unless there has been a new development in his criminal case, or another Democrat just threw their hat into the primary ring.
topclimber
@eversor: He only speaks for the Senate Democratic caucus when he has their backing. Was his statement in that capacity, or as an individual? Twas the latter, and apparently twas not specifically a call for him NOT to resign.
“Bob Menendez has been a dedicated public servant and is always fighting hard for the people of New Jersey. He has a right to due process and a fair trial…Senator Menendez has rightly decided to step down temporarily from his position as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee until the matter has been resolved.”
Geminid
@Uncle Cosmo: Both Kim’s and Sherill’s districts were reinforced by Trenton Democrats in the last round of redistricting, so the electoral risk might not be so yoooog.
This question of purple seat Democrats running for higher office has also come up in the cases of Elisssa Slotkin, and Abigail Spanberger. Like Kim and Sherill, those three women flipped Republican seats in 2018. Now, Slotkin and Porter are running for Senate and Spanberger will not run for reelection so she can concentrate on a Governer bid in 2025.
So Democrats are worrying about holding on to these seats, with more or less good reason. But I live in Spanberger’s district, and I was glad to see that she is planning to run for Governor because she will make a good one.
As for holding on to the Congressional seat, the way I see it is that Abigail Spanberger has paid her dues and done her work, and now 7th District Democrats will just have to do ours.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid:
That’s a good way to look at it. Most politicians are hyper-ambitious or they wouldn’t be politicians. It’s not fair to expect them to stay on a lower rung forever.
WaterGirl
@TheMightyTrowel: You lost your spaces in your nym!
Geminid
Since Menendez has had a lot of influence on US foreign relations, his indictment was big news overseas. Menendez has been a thorn in Turkiye’s side, and Turks like journalist Ragip Soylu got their digs in:
Predictably, Greeks jumped into Soylu’s timeline to protest that he had slandered their country. Menendez was charged with selling favors to Egypt, they said, and no one has shown any evidence that he has been selling his influence to Greece!
Just you wait, Turks replied..
Omnes Omnibus
@eversor:
Was Schumer speaking ex catherdra?
Emily B.
I have a theory, as a resident of NJ’s Hudson County, that the only political voices that Menendez will hear are those of North Jersey’s machine politicians. Hudson County is his power base. If the local party leaders—the county exec and commissioners, the mayors, and the state reps—turn against him, even he has to realize that he’s finished.
So far, the local Dems have been fairly quiet—publicly. I’ll be very interested to see what they say in the next few days.
Anyway, Andy Kim running for Menendez’s seat is the best news of the weekend.
FridayNext
Andy Kim is also a very talented singer of some awesome 70’s hits.*
Why has nobody ever pointed this out before?
*My apologies for the presence of Jimmy Savile in this clip.
Betty
@Righteous Hazard: They did prosecute him before. It ended in a hung jury with 10 willing to acquit so they didn’t refile the case.
Betty
@Betty Cracker: There was also a sweet story about taking his mother to the Capitol. Seems like a great guy.
Lyrebird
@sab: In that 100-year span before 1943, there were also major waves of backlash. And that included far more than the coast. My relatives grew up interacting with Chinese railroad workers during/just after the Civil war… in Nebraska. I can’t find an unpaywalled source right now, but I read that the largest lynching in US history was of Chinese railroad workers.
@gwangung: Wow. Even in post-WWII. Wow.
Ella in New Mexico
@Joey Maloney:
Over at Emptywheel’s timeline I actually think they pretty much do
It’s clear from reading her work that he’s been on the low level take for a long time, easy mark for foreign bribes and intelligence gathering.
TBH, I now think there is a lot more to this story than routine corruption, in particular, I think the Egyptian government was in the early stages of grooming Menendez for way bigger things. They did get him to hand over details on US Embassy staff in Cairo, for example. The Feds have been watching him for years, certainly never stopped after his charges were droppped in 2018. The IC and Justice decided to get him now, before it caused way more damage to the Intelligence Community’s ability to keep quiet on their sources and methods information were they to charge him with acting as a foreign agent.
Geminid
@Ella in New Mexico: It seems like prosecutors have got Menendez wrapped up tight. I think he will take a plea deal and will not be a factor in next year’s Democratic primary.
I also think that if she runs, Rep. Sherill will be the next Senator from New Jersey.