For Immediate Release: September 27th 2023

North NJ DSA calls for Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) to resign from the office of U.S. Senate, amid incredible charges of bribery in exchange for political influence. While the Justice Department continues to investigate these charges of bribery the court of public opinion Menendez brushes off is not just one of reaction but one where cases can be made to envision a New Jersey and a United States without warhawks and criminals like Bob Menendez. The Senator’s anti-worker, imperialist, and undemocratic vision for the United States is demonstrated by his conduct as well as his record in Congress; as his vision is one that is reactionary and ruthless, one with allegiances to Big Pharma, Israeli apartheid, and the special interests that have consistently slipped the not-so-proverbial bars of gold into his pockets for too many years. We affirm our call for Menendez to resign is, in fact, politically motivated.This is a moment New Jersey can stand up and demand Menendez step down and in so doing build a better New Jersey, a better nation, and a better world.

But let’s be clear: New Jersey’s corrupt political culture of party bosses that serve for-profit interests is what got us here. Learn about our work to dismantle this relationship right now, on picket lines of auto workers and nurses in our region.

Here is why we’re motivated to build a New Jersey free from Menendez and interests that keep him in power

In a state with over 70% support for Medicare for All, Menendez has long stood in the way of health justice, refusing to support this popular policy because he prioritizes the revenue of his corporate financial backers. Aligned with other reactionary Democrats, Menendez takes in huge amounts of money from the pharmaceutical industry. He has even forced the Democrats to weaken Medicare drug-pricing reforms, ensuring that more people suffer and die so that profits keep flowing.

In 2022, when Roe v. Wade fell to a rogue Supreme Court, we marched on his office in Jersey City to demand he codify Roe and protect abortion access for all. His resistance to stand up for bodily autonomy of Americans may now come to his aid, as members of a rogue Supreme Court also have engaged in similar acts of bribery and may now determine the Senator’s legal outcome. 

Senator Menendez also notably belongs to the pro-war faction of the Democratic Party, and as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he has supported the build-up to a dangerous new Cold War with China. He opposed President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal in 2015, a rare effort to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East. His avid support for sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela harm ordinary people more than any dictators he claims to target. Menendez’s slavish devotion to Israel’s ongoing genocidal oppression of the Palestinian people knows no limits, as he answers to AIPAC–an organization that supports MAGA Republican fascists–while working with Marco Rubio and Mitch McConnell to suppress the American right to protest with the sweeping “Combating BDS Act,” a shameful throwback to the McCarthy era.

His failure to sign on as co-sponsor for a Green New Deal, the Raise the Wage Act, his vote against stopping weapons to Saudi Arabia, and decades of votes to hand more and more money to the Department of Defense for war abroad make Menendez one of the worst Democrats in championing progressive policy in the Senate.

This is only a partial list of Senator Menendez’s real crimes–his sacrificing of lives in New Jersey and elsewhere for the sake of the powerful interests he has always served and protected. We reject Menendez’s vision for the world and for working people everywhere. We also condemn his installing his son as heir to a seat that belongs to the working class of North Jersey.

North Jersey DSA believes a better New Jersey, U.S. and a better world are possible– one without Bob Menendez in office.