Everything about Bob Menendez totally explained
Robert "Bob" Menendez (born
January 1,
1954) is the junior
Democratic Senator from
New Jersey. In January 2006, he was appointed by
Jon Corzine to fill the seat made vacant by Corzine's resignation from the Senate to serve as
Governor of New Jersey; Menendez subsequently won the seat in the
November 7 general election later that year. Before his appointment to the Senate, he represented
New Jersey's 13th congressional district in the
United States House of Representatives from 1993 to 2006. He currently resides in
Hoboken. He is the first person of Hispanic ethnicity to represent New Jersey in the U.S. Senate.
Personal life
Menendez was born in
New York City to Cuban parents Evangelina and Mario Menendez. Fleeing
Cuba in 1953 due to their dislike of the
Batista government, his parents came to New York. His father was a carpenter and his mother was a seamstress. He grew up in
Union City, New Jersey, where he graduated from
Union Hill High School.
After graduating with a
B.A. from
Saint Peter's College, he attended
Rutgers School of Law-Newark in
Newark, from which he obtained his
Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree. He was admitted to the New Jersey
Bar in 1980 and became a lawyer in private practice.
He married Jane Jacobsen, a teacher for the
Union City Board of Education, and the couple had two children: Alicia, a graduate of
Harvard University, and Robert, a student at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Menendez and Jacobsen have since divorced.
Early political career
In 1973, at age 19, while attending
Saint Peter's College in
Jersey City, he launched a successful petition drive against his mentor, then-Union City Mayor
William Musto, to reform the local school board. He was elected to the Union City
Board of Education in 1974, and would later testify against Musto in a court case that resulted in a prison sentence for Musto.
Menendez was elected mayor of Union City in 1986 and served as mayor until 1992. While mayor, he simultaneously served in the
New Jersey Legislature, a common practice for New Jersey politicians. He was in the
General Assembly from 1987 until 1991 and in the
New Jersey Senate from 1991 to 1993, following the death of
Christopher Jackman.
United States House of Representatives
In 1992,
14th District Congressman
Frank Guarini retired after seven terms. Menendez won the Democratic nomination for the Jersey City-based district, which was renumbered the 13th after New Jersey lost a district in the
1990 Census, and was easily elected that November. The district was already heavily Democratic, but had been redrawn with a Hispanic majority after the 1990 census. He was reelected six times with no significant
Republican opposition.
In 1996, Menendez was briefly a candidate in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate seat held by the retiring
Bill Bradley, but he backed out and the seat was won by Democrat
Robert Torricelli.
In 2003, Menendez was elected chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, ranking him third in the Democratic hierarchy in the house, behind
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of
California and
Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of
Maryland. He was elected to chair the Credentials Committee of the
2004 Democratic National Convention and was a speaker on the first day of the convention. During the
107th Congress, he was chair of the
Democratic Task Force on Education and the
Democratic Task Force on Homeland Security.
Although he's often portrayed as the political boss of
Hudson County, he strongly dislikes this appellation, particularly because, according to an anonymous close source quoted in the
December 11,
2005 Union City Reporter, "there is no boss of Hudson County". Menendez is also seen as one leader in a fractured political establishment tenuously united by agreements that permitted the county to generate a significant vote for Corzine in the
2005 gubernatorial race.
United States Senate
While several other names had been mentioned, Menendez was the early favorite among pundits for Governor-elect Corzine's replacement to fill the vacancy that would be created when Corzine resigned from the Senate. Corzine's decision to appoint Menendez got the support of several
Latino groups, including the
National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.
Menendez is the first member of a minority to represent New Jersey in the Senate, and only the sixth Hispanic to serve in that body. He joins Republican
Mel Martinez of
Florida (also of Cuban descent) and Democrat
Ken Salazar of
Colorado (of
Mexican descent) as the only three Hispanics currently in the Senate. He is on the
Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs,
Budget and
Energy and Natural Resources committees.
In February 2006, Menendez cosponsored legislation with
New York Senator
Hillary Clinton to make it illegal for foreign governments to buy U.S. port operations. The legislation was a direct response to
Dubai Ports World's efforts to purchase
Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O) of the
United Kingdom, which operates six major U. S. ports. Menendez said, "Our ports are the front lines of the war on terrorism. They are both vulnerable targets for attack and venues for smuggling and human trafficking. We wouldn't turn the
Border Patrol or the
Customs Service over to a foreign government, and we can't afford to turn our ports over to one either."
On
September 28,
2006 Menendez voted for the
Military Commissions Act.
On
June 12 2007, Menendez endorsed Hillary Clinton's presidential bid and was given the position of National Campaign Co-Chair. Since then he's made numerous media appearances voicing his support for her campaign.
On
April 25,
2008, a former undercover
F.B.I. agent revealed in the book that Cuban diplomats approached
Robert Eringer to investigate Menendez. It was suggested that the Cuban government was determined to generate scandalous information about the senator, along with Representatives
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and
Lincoln Diaz-Balart, because of their anti-Cuban lobbying efforts.
Committee assignments
- Committee on Foreign Relations
- Subcommittee on European Affairs
- Subcommittee on International Development and Foreign Assistance, Economic Affairs and International Environmental Protection (Chairman)
- Subcommittee on International Operations and Organizations, Democracy and Human Rights
- Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps and Narcotics Affairs
- Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
- Subcommittee on Energy
- Subcommittee on National Parks
- Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests
- Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
- Subcommittee on Financial Institutions
- Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance and Investment
- Committee on the Budget
2006 Republican allegations of ethics violations
On
August 27,
2006, two Republican state lawmakers filed an ethics complaint against Menendez, alleging he broke conflict-of-interest rules when he rented property out to a nonprofit agency that receives federal funds. Menendez helped the organization win designation as a federally qualified health care center in 1998. That designation allowed the agency to receive additional federal grants. Menendez allies note that the organization in question, the North Hudson Community Action Corp., which provides social services and health care to the poor and was founded in 1960, had received federal funding for years before Menendez was in Congress, and receives its funding based on mathematical formulas. Menendez maintains that he rented the property out below market-value because "he was supportive of its work". The total rent collected over nine years was over $300,000.
2006 Senate election
Menendez successfully ran to retain his seat in the Senate. In the general election in November 2006, he defeated Republican
Thomas Kean, Jr., current minority whip in the
New Jersey Senate and son of former state governor
Thomas Kean.
The race had been considered one of the best hopes for a Republican to pick up a Democratic seat. With 99% of the precincts reporting, Menendez stood at 1,156,237 votes or 53% to Kean's 971,757 or 45%. However, Menendez's margin of victory, albeit comfortable, was the smallest for a Democratic incumbent in 2006, which may be related to the fact that Menendez had served less than one year in the Senate at the time of his reelection.
Menendez was endorsed by the following major newspapers covering New Jersey politics:
The New York Times,
The Philadelphia Inquirer,
The Star-Ledger, and
The Record.
Electoral history
Further Information
Get more info on 'Bob Menendez'.
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