An interim U.S. Senator is likely to take office soon after Bob Menendez‘s resignation becomes effective on August 20, the New Jersey Globe has learned.
Gov. Phil Murphy will be in Chicago for the Democratic National Convention on Menendez’s last day in office. The new senator could be sworn in as early as that day – and that ceremony could take place in Chicago if necessary.
The Senate is scheduled to be in recess from August 2 until September 9, but that won’t delay the new junior senator from New Jersey from taking the oath of office.
Typically, Vice Presidents swear in new senators in their constitutional capacity as President of the Senate. Kamala Harris could be asked to administer the oath in Chicago or elsewhere; Senate President Pro-Tempore Patty Murray is also expected to attend the convention. A federal judge could also conduct a swearing-in ceremony in New Jersey.
Unlike interim members of the New Jersey Legislature, who must wait for the Senate or Assembly to be in session before they can take office, there is precedent for appointed U.S. Senators to be sworn in while the Senate is in recess.
Democrat Frank Lautenberg was elected to the U.S. Senate in November 1982, but Republican Nicholas Brady, who had been appointed in March after Harrison Wiliams resigned, stepped down early so Lautenberg could get a jump on seniority. Republican Gov. Tom Kean appointed Lautenberg on December 27, 1982. A federal judge swore Lautenberg in at a ski lodge in Colorado; two senators, John Glenn and Rudy Boschwitz, happened to be vacationing in Vail, so both watched him take the oath.
(The Senate has since changed its rules to prohibit the practice of senators taking office a little bit earlier to gain an edge in seniority.)
Paul Wellstone of Minnesota was killed in a plane crash eleven days before the 2002 election, and Gov. Jesse Ventura appointed an independent caretaker, Dean Barkley, to replace him. Barkley was appointed on November 4 – the day before the election – and a federal judge in Minneapolis swore him in two days later; when the Senate returned for a lame-duck session on November 15, Vice President Dick Cheney swore him in again.
On December 20, 2002, two weeks after Frank Murkowski resigned his U.S. Senate seat to become governor of Alaska, he appointed his daughter to replace him. Lisa Murkowski was sworn in later that day by a federal judge in Anchorage.
Murphy will leave for a family vacation on Friday and is expected to announce his pick after he returns.
Under Senate rules, Murphy must file a certificate of appointment with the President of the Senate before the new senator takes the oath of office. Secretary of State Tahesha Way must attest to the appointment.
The last appointed senator from New Jersey was Jeffrey Chiesa, a Republican who was named by Gov. Chris Christie on June 6, 2013, three days after Lautenberg died in office. He was sworn in by Vice President Joe Biden on June 10 in Washington.
During his 129 days as an interim senator, Chiesa focused on human trafficking. He quickly assembled a small temporary staff of nineteen and tapped a Capitol Hill veteran, Donna Mullins, to serve as his chief of staff.
A former chief of staff to Reps. Dean Gallo (R-Parsippany) and Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-Harding), Mullins took a leave of absence from a lobbying firm, Winning Strategies Washington, to work for Chiesa. Some of his other staffers came with him from Trenton, others were old-timers who came back for one last run, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey loaned him a staffer who had worked on Capitol Hill before.
Since Lautenberg’s death was sudden and it took his staff time to shut down and pack, Chiesa never got a real Senate office; instead, he operated out of a double-wide trailer in a courtyard of one of the Senate office buildings.
Menendez was appointed to the Senate on January 17, 2006, to replace Jon Corzine. Corzine had resigned that day to become governor, then appointed Menendez, who was sworn in by Senate President Pro-Tempore Ted Stevens the following day.
Incumbency was a valuable tool for Menendez: a Fairleigh Dickinson University poll released the day he became a senator showed him trailing Republican Tom Kean, Jr. by a 36%-25% margin. In a cycle that overwhelmingly favored Democrats, Menendez won 53%-44%.