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In the wake of his highly provocative criminal indictment, Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey has faced resignation calls from 31 of his Democratic colleagues in the chamber. They have plenty of company: His home state’s Democratic governor has called for him to step aside, as have many other party officials at multiple levels of government.
What’s more, it’s not just office-holders. A Public Policy Polling survey in New Jersey, released last week, found the incumbent senator trailing Rep. Andy Kim by 53 points in a hypothetical Democratic primary match-up. A Data for Progress poll, meanwhile, also found Menendez struggling to reach double-digit support among Democratic voters in his own state.
Late last week, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes asked former Sen. Claire McCaskill for her reactions to the partisan response. The Missouri Democrat, an MSNBC political analyst, replied:
“This is the way it’s supposed to work. I mean, one party, you have people who want the norms of ethical behavior and the respect for the rule of law, and, frankly, the sense that whether [Menendez] did something legal or not, what’s in that indictment makes him unattractive to vote for as a United States senator.”
McCaskill added that the Democratic response to Menendez’s corruption allegations was unfolding against a backdrop in which Republicans were not only rallying behind Donald Trump — who’s facing 91 felony counts across multiple jurisdictions — but several GOP lawmakers actually want him to become the next House speaker.
The asymmetry speaks volumes about the state of the parties. A Washington Post analysis added last week, “Democrats are much more willing than Republicans to say that wrongdoing by those on their side (or related to those on their side) should face any due consequences.”
If this dynamic were limited to just Menendez and Trump, it might be easier to dismiss, but there’s ample evidence showing the breadth of the phenomenon.
When then-Democratic Rep. Corrine Brown of Florida was indicted, Democratic primary voters quickly ousted her. Similarly, after then-Democratic Rep. Chaka Fattah faced corruption charges, he also lost a primary. Once the Pennsylvania congressman was convicted, his intraparty colleagues quickly showed him the door. When then-Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich faced corruption allegations, it was a Democratic-led legislature that wasted no time in kicking him out of office.
There were no calls to “investigate the investigation.” No one concocted prosecutorial conspiracy theories. It didn’t occur to Democrats to suggest mysterious, wealthy benefactors were somehow involved in the cases. No one in the party alleged “election interference” or demanded that law enforcement officials be “defunded.” Not a single Democratic official, at any level, suggested evidence had been “planted” or that the Justice Department had been “weaponized.”
GOP reactions to related cases in recent years have been qualitatively different. Trump is the prohibitive favorite for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination despite his criminal charges. Ken Paxton is still the attorney general in Texas because much of his party has been unmoved by his own criminal scandals. Rep. George Santos is still in Congress because Republican leaders have been willing to tolerate his scandals, too.
Several other congressional Republicans caught up in corruption scandals in recent years — Chris Collins, Duncan Hunter, Steve Stockman, Rick Renzi, Robin Hayes, and Randall “Duke” Cunningham — were ultimately convicted, only to receive presidential pardons and/or commutations from Trump, none of which received any meaningful pushback from GOP lawmakers.
There’s a partisan difference, and it’s an unflattering one for the contemporary Republican Party.