This is the fourth in a series of in-person, in-depth New Jersey Globe interviews with New Jersey’s 14 members of Congress. The interviews will be published as-is, with editing for length and clarity.
This week, the Globe spoke with Rep. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City), a first-term Democrat from Hudson County who serves on the House Homeland Security and Transportation & Infrastructure Committees. The Globe sat down with Menendez to talk about his campaign for re-election, the federal charges against his father, his views on important immigration and transportation issues, and more.
Previous interviews: Rep. Andy Kim, Rep. Chris Smith, Rep. Bill Pascrell
New Jersey Globe: We’re a year and a little bit into your first term. It’s been an odd time to be in Congress, especially to be a freshman in Congress. What are your initial takeaways from this first year?
Rob Menendez: It’s more of an honor than I could have imagined. It’s challenging – more challenging than I could have imagined. But it’s an incredible honor to get to represent the place you grew up, the place that you chose to raise your family. We knew there were a bunch of challenges, and we wanted to be part of taking those challenges on. It’s why we ran in 2022. And getting down here, you have a greater sense of the depth of those challenges in a quickly changing world. To be in a place where you can focus on how you’re going to address those issues, how you’re going to look for solutions, is meaningful. I’m trying to go to work every single day and think about the big picture issues that we’re trying to deal with – things that we ran on, like continuing to ensure that there’s reproductive access in the country; how do we stop gun violence in our communities, specifically in our schools.
And then also thinking about the district, and making sure that the folks of the 8th congressional district are extremely well-served; making sure that we’re finding ways to help them with the issues that they have. We’ve solved over 1,200 cases for families in the district. The thing that’s sort of unique about a freshman office, which I didn’t fully appreciate, is that you don’t inherit a staff. You have to build it. You’re a small business owner that has a set budget and no team, and you have to go about building it in two different places: back in the district and in DC. You need to figure out how to get onto the committees you want to be a part of, what caucuses you join, how you navigate the Democratic caucus – that happens in DC. Back home it’s, how are you engaging with your constituents, how are you finding ways to connect with them. And while they’re interconnected, they’re sort of two different orbits that you’re living in, and you have to have them work side-by-side. You have to have as much cohesion as possible to create as much efficiency and output as possible.
You mentioned navigating within the Democratic caucus – how have you found that so far? Do you feel like you have a specific place that you occupy within this much larger body?
Yeah, so it starts with the freshman class. We have an incredible freshman class. What I remind people of is that everyone that ran and is a member of this freshman class did so after having experienced January 6. I think it sort of changes who wanted to come to Washington, right, because you visibly saw something that was broken. Imagine wanting to go to a place to work that was attacked. And so you have people here who are incredible public servants, who have made this decision in these really challenging times that they want to come here and do the work. You have an incredible people of people in the Democratic freshman class. You have one of my closest friends, [California Rep.] Robert Garcia, the former mayor of Long Beach, California; you have [Florida Rep.] Max Frost. You have people who were labor organizers. You have this crazy, incredible mosaic of the Democratic Party who are your freshman colleagues, and you’re going through all of it together. So that’s where it starts for me.
How I’ve navigated it is I’ve started with that freshman class, and then working alongside the [Congressional Hispanic Caucus] freshmen. We made a decision that there’s an opportunity to run for a leadership position within the freshman class. The freshman class gets to elect a rep to Steering and Policy, one of the critical committees within the Democratic caucus. For me, it was an opportunity to, one, represent the class, and two, get a better understanding of caucus dynamics and understand the inner workings of the caucus. You’re in the room with leadership. There’s the household names – Hakeem Jeffries, Katherine Clark, Pete Aguilar. But then there’s also the people who are ranking members on committees, like Frank Pallone. You get to be in the room with those people, and you get to be in the room with people who make up the core nucleus of the Democratic caucus. My style is to try to observe and learn as much as I can, then take that information back to the freshman class.
The thing to tie it all together is, people have come here with purpose and mission. It’s tough being in the minority when there’s these big, consequential things you want to take on. We fight every single day to take on those issues. Whether it’s a discharge petition for a gun violence prevention bill that’s never going to see the light of day with this Republican majority; whether it’s ensuring that we get a discharge petition so we can vote, or try to vote, on the floor for something that would ensure reproductive health for women across the country. To look side-by-side at the people that you’re with, both in the freshman class and in the larger caucus – you know that we can do the work, and we can get it done.
One thing that I think has very much overshadowed your first term in Congress has been the federal indictment against Senator Bob Menendez, your father. In the immediate aftermath of that indictment, you released a statement saying that you had “unwavering confidence” in him and that you were looking forward to seeing him “move past this distraction.” Do you stand by that original statement?
For one, I wouldn’t say it’s overshadowed [my first term]. It’s definitely been something that we’ve had to deal with on the other side of the House, from a personal level and a political level. But it has not touched anything that we’ve done here. On the official side, it’s been business as usual every single day, and if you look at the results, that’s clearly been the case.
I think people fully appreciate the unique situation that I’m in. The conversations that I’ve had over the last several months – it’s a difficult situation. People understand that it’s my father, and people have shown me a lot of grace on that front.
To push you a little bit more: do you still have “unwavering confidence” in him?
Listen, people say that you have the presumption of innocence. Each person has the right to due process. We were arguing about this yesterday in the impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas, right, because he was not afforded due process. I believe everyone has the presumption of innocence and the right to due process. People say it, I believe it. Those are the rights that he should be afforded.
In your own race back at home against Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla, what do you say to a voter who says, ‘Well, I’ve supported the work you’ve done in the district, I support the work you’ve done in Washington, but I can’t trust your name. This whole thing has made me lose trust in politics and politicians.’ How do you reach back out to that voter?
Well, you double down on your record. You say, ‘Listen, let me show you what I’ve done with the opportunity that I’ve been given.’ The voters of New Jersey’s 8th congressional district sent us here to do a job, and we’ve done that job every single day. I’ve poured myself into this role to maximize it, to create as much output for the residents of the 8th congressional district as possible. I said I wanted to take on big challenges, and that’s what we’ve done. We have aging infrastructure; we sit on the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, and we’ve brought dollars back to improve our infrastructure. How do you get people to engage with their government and have a positive feeling about it? We want you to have white-glove service when you reach out to our office. We want you to have a positive experience and we want to go solve your issue. Whatever it is, come to us, think of us.
Understandably, people have a lot of questions. We’re out in the public – if you look at our social media and all the things that we do, we’re not hiding. We do interviews. We’re out every single day, and we’re happy to answer any questions that people have. But when we get pushed, when we get pressed, we’re always going to point to the work that we’ve done. We’re going to go back 2022 and say, ‘This is what we wanted to do, and we’ve delivered.’ And there’s so much more work that we can do, and we’re so well-positioned to do, that I wake up every day and for all the challenges, I’m so excited to do it. I just want to keep doing it.
This cycle has brought more scrutiny than any time in recent memory on New Jersey’s political system, and especially on the county line, which is obviously a foundational part of New Jersey politics. There’s been a lot of criticism over whether it’s really the right process to have county parties making decisions that significantly predate the primary. How would you respond to that criticism in a place like Hudson County, where there are a relatively small number of people who make big decisions for the county as a whole?
Listen, as you’re going to see in this election, as you see in every election, the voters decide. I understand the critique of the county line, of the ballot design. But people have to engage – Andy Kim has said this, Sue Altman has said this – you have to engage in the system that you have today. All of the challenges that we want to take on, we can’t wait for the perfect system. We know that we want to run, today, to represent the 8th congressional district, and this is part of it.
Part of it is also making sure that you can build trust with the different party leaders. Building trust with the different folks within the universe is a good test to see how you’re going to build trust with the voters. Voters trust people like [North Bergen Mayor] Nick Sacco and [Union City Mayor/State Sen.] Brian Stack and [Bayonne Mayor] Jimmy Davis, and if you can earn their trust, then they’re going to be good advocates for you, so that they can help you earn the trust of all of the 750,000-plus residents that you have the honor of representing.
Our view is that this is the system, and we’re going to engage in it. If it ever changed, it wouldn’t change how we approach this. We ran, in 2022, an aggressive campaign, from the time we announced until November. We didn’t stop after the primary. This campaign, we’re going to run an aggressive campaign from now, through the primary, to November. We have a message to deliver to the residents of the 8th congressional district. We want to deliver that message every day. People want to ask about the line? We’ll have that conversation. But I want to tell people how we’re helping them. I guarantee you that the number one issue that residents of the 8th congressional district want to talk about is affordability. And I want to tell them I’m thinking about childcare every single day. I’m thinking about elder care every single day. I’m thinking about how we make life more affordable for you every single day, because I want your family to succeed. I want you to wake up every day and start to feel positive about those tomorrows. That’s how we win elections.
Because you specifically invoked Andy Kim and Sue Altman: their stated position is, ‘We’re running in the system as it exists, but we would rather the system be different.’ Is that your position too?
You get a limited time in this role, a limited time to advocate for the people that you care about. My opinion is that I’m focused on the issues that I think are the primary issues for folks – affordability issues, making sure we have access to reproductive health, trying to stymie the gun violence that we’re experiencing in our communities. Those are the issues that matter. There will always be political issues that people have, the ones that get talked about a lot in political circles. But I think my primary obligation is to address the challenges that people are facing in their daily lives. That’s what my focus is. The rest of it, to me, is just the rest of it. This system, another system; if I have something to offer the residents of the 8th congressional district, I’m going to offer it, and I’m going to do it in whatever environment I have to do it in.
You’re on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and you represent a district that has a lot of public transit commuters. You’ve also been pretty critical of New York City’s congestion pricing plan. What’s the right balance on that?
So I think we’ve proposed the right balance, which is to say, ‘You want to have a congestion pricing plan for your central business district? We want to see a benefit for New Jersey that also meets the stated purpose of getting cars out of the CBD.’ What we’ve proposed is the extension of the 7 Line. It’s something that the Bloomberg administration had studied after Governor Christie pulled the plug on [Access to the Region’s Core]. It would run through the district. Another thing it would achieve is you could potentially have the endpoint be at Secaucus Junction, which is what I believe the original study had the 7 Line extending to, so you’d get buses and cars going there and not continuing into the Lincoln Tunnel, which cuts right through the district.
To me, if the stated goal is to get cars off the road, to create better health outcomes for our communities, I want those better health outcomes for the residents of the 8th congressional district. I don’t want to push the congestion out to New Jersey – that’s something that I think all New Jersey electeds are aligned on. And if there’s going to be an economic move for the MTA – not the Port Authority, the MTA is a New York agency – then how do we ensure that there’s a benefit for New Jersey commuters? Other folks are very focused on the offsets and this and that, but I want to know how the MTA can provide a deliverable for New Jersey commuters that makes their commute easier. I think the 7 Line is a place we should have a conversation about.
I think there’s also an efficiency to doing it in tandem with the Gateway Program, just given the necessary infrastructure that you’re going to have. Then you have another avenue, one-seat ride, to get from New Jersey to Midtown, all the way out to Queens for whoever’s a Mets fan. To me it’s, let’s talk about solutions. And I’m open to anything. If people have different ideas, I’ll listen. There is a balance: how do you create the right transit policy that works for New York without it being to the detriment of New Jersey? That’s what I want to make sure we’re thinking about.
Another piece of this puzzle, though it’s obviously distinct, is the proposed highway widening project in Jersey City. What are your thoughts on that?
We’ve been engaged on that issue for a while now. It’s a very large project – there’s things like replacing the bridge, the widening, all of these different things that are part of it. And the widening, obviously, is the most controversial part. What we said is, if you make no modifications to the proposed plan, is there a way to create a better mass transit option? So what we proposed was a bus rapid transit system. To push the Turnpike Authority and say, ‘If you’re going to expand the roadway, then make it so that we’re not adding more cars and more demand,’ which is the number one complaint from people: induced demand. If you widen, you’ll have induced demand, more cars, poorer outcomes for Jersey City and Hoboken.
I’ve read The Power Broker.
One of my favorites. Our view was, let’s engage in this conversation. So many times, people view an issue and say, ‘There’s sides to it. Let’s pick a side.’ I think you see that in too many situations, electeds just rush to a side. Something that is a lost skill is to say, ‘Let’s have a conversation. Let’s challenge each other to think about different solutions.’ Ultimately, whether they rebuild the bridge, don’t do the widening, et cetera – instead of automatically going into corners, let’s have a conversation. And if the Turnpike Authority says no to a bus rapid transit system, okay, but you’ve at least preserved an alternative that now allows you to say, we’ve engaged in good faith on trying to come up with a solution, something that creates more mass transit options, something that gets more cars off the road.
Another issue that you’ve been thrust in the middle of is immigration. We’ve talked before about the potential Senate deal on immigration; just this week, you were in a marathon impeachment hearing on Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas. Given all of these different ideas and solutions and impeachment proceedings that are flying around, what would you most like to see Congress do on this issue? I presume it’s not the things that it has been doing.
Come up with a comprehensive solution, which isn’t going to be what everybody wants. We’ve decided that this is one of the most pressing issues we’re going to deal with, and we want to lead on it. We’re on Homeland Security, which unfortunately has been used by Republicans to be a crusade to impeach Mayorkas. We’ve been to the border twice since we were elected, twice in our first year. We’re co-chairs with Representative Espaillat on the Hispanic Caucus’s immigration task force. We’ve been on the calls with senior folks from the White House, advocating for a thoughtful, humane approach to the challenges that we’re having at our border.
There is a global migration trend right now – people are moving because of failed governments, because of climate change, because of economic opportunity. We have to think about it in a global context before we narrow in. Once we do narrow in, it’s a challenge – but it’s a challenge that could be turned into an opportunity. Because when we sit down with different industry leaders, the issue that people keep raising over and over again is the workforce. There’s a workforce shortage. We have an aging workforce, an aging population, and we don’t have enough able-bodied people to fill those roles. Well, interesting. We have a dynamic where people are trying to get to this country, mainly for economic reasons; many seeking asylum, many because they’re being persecuted in their countries of origin. They’re coming to our border, and that’s a challenge that we’re struggling with. We could turn that challenge into an opportunity where we could think about how do we, first, take people out of the shadows who are already here – people who are part of our communities, who we interact with every day. How do we bring them out of the shadows, give them status here in this country and the ability to work, give them their documentation and their papers so they can fully participate in our economy and in our communities. Then, let’s think about the people who want to come here, and think about ways to bring them into the country and ensure that we grow a robust economy on a completely different trajectory.
The reason we’re not having that positive discussion is that Republicans see it as a political opportunity to score points. Their party belongs to Donald Trump – that’s a fact. They know Donald Trump is a flawed individual. The way that they’ve gone about being in the majority in the House is trying to tear down people like Secretary Mayorkas. That way, if you bring him down, if you bring Joe Biden down, it makes Trump seem more appealing to the people that they need to win the presidential election, and to win their districts. That’s what they’re using their position as the majority party to do: tear people down to elevate Donald Trump.
They lack seriousness, and it’s sad to me. There are times when I come here, and you go and you battle and you’re trying to take on these major issues – and then you see people across the aisle who just don’t realize how serious this moment is. That’s hard. Listen, I’ll work with Democrats, I’ll work with Republicans; we need to get things done. And we talk about it, but when it comes to actually moving things forward – this is objectively one of the least productive Congresses that we’ve had. We’ve had the floor in standstills because of what they did with [Kevin] McCarthy, their first Speaker election, their second Speaker election. At the end of the day, what do they have to show for it?
Your district is a migrant-rich community; you yourself are the grandson of Cuban immigrants. I was curious about Cuba policy, and the friendlier relations that have existed under recent Democratic presidents. Do you think that’s been a good policy? Would you rather see tougher policies or looser policies?
I’m 38 years old, and I have a lot of friends of my vintage who are of Cuban heritage. They crave a different connection to the island. It’s trying to think about ways to ensure that the residents of the island can live freely, can live in a democracy, and how they can have growth. There’s been a back-and-forth on policy, but ultimately, the health of the island and the health of the people on the island is our priority. Being thoughtful in our approach, being thoughtful in how we create change there, is what binds us all together.
Do you feel a generational divide on that?
I think if you look at where people are, from grandparents, parents, and children – obviously, my grandparents left Cuba, my father was born here, and my sister and I were born here. That’s a dynamic that exists for a lot of folks of Cuban heritage. I think where you are, generationally, impacts how you feel about policy towards the island. Our grandparents’ vintage feel so wronged by what happened, and the seizure of property, and having to leave their country because there was a complete change and no economic opportunity for so many people. Then, the people who grew up here who have an allegiance to the country and also a more direct tie to the island, and then people who are my vintage. It’s created a distinction in terms of who you’re dealing with and their thoughts on policy towards the island, and it’s something we have to navigate in how we come up with a cohesive strategy for engagement with the island.
You’re doing a full-time job here; you’ve got basically a full-time job campaigning to keep this job back in New Jersey; and you’ve got two young kids. How do you make that work?
I’m fortunate in every possible way. My wife’s incredible, she really is the one that makes this all work. I have an incredible team on the political side, I have an incredible team on the official side that enables us to get done everything that we need to get done. My priority was always my family, making sure that my kids and wife are good – I FaceTime with them every morning when I’m here, try to [schedule myself] so I can take my daughter to Pre-K 3, see my son one last time, say goodbye to my wife, and then come down and stay connected to them when I’m here.
And when I’m here, because my family stays in New Jersey, I try to maximize my time. From the time I get up to the time I go to sleep, preparing for hearings, preparing for meetings, thinking about issues that we’ve experienced in the district that we want to try to think through solutions for. I can’t tell you how many things that we’re working on at any one time.
The first couple weeks, when I’d leave my family, it was a transition, and it was hard and sad to be leaving them. And then I realized, you can’t be sad. You don’t deserve to be sad. Even though I miss my kids the second I close the door, the best way to honor the sacrifice they’re making is to be as productive as I can be. I’m going to make the most of this. Because if I don’t, then can I justify the sacrifice?