Gaming out Matt Gaetz’s bid to oust Kevin McCarthy

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has a big decision to make.

In the run-up to preventing a government shutdown, any questions about what the Democrats would do in the event of a vote to oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker were easily batted aside as too theoretical to entertain.

“We haven’t given any thought to how to handle a hypothetical motion to vacate, because we are entirely focused on making sure that we avoid this extreme MAGA Republican shutdown,” Jeffries said last week.

But avoiding the shutdown has now led directly to a vote on a motion to vacate.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) repeatedly threatened that the passage of a continuing resolution would trigger the introduction of the MTV that he’s had in his back pocket for weeks. After the CR passed yesterday, Gaetz promised that it will happen this week.

“If somebody wants to make a motion against me, bring it,” McCarthy told reporters defiantly yesterday.

“Kevin McCarthy’s gonna get his wish,” Gaetz responded this morning on ABC’s “This Week.”

POLITICO Playbook spoke with a number of House Democrats this morning about how they will respond. So let’s unpack the politics of this.

Let’s assume Gaetz starts with only a handful of Republicans — perhaps just five, maybe as many as 10 — and that McCarthy has no chance of turning this group around. It’s not much, and that means Gaetz needs Democrats — perhaps as many as 200 — to oust McCarthy. (Ironic considering that his line today was that McCarthy is the Democrats’ speaker.)

The biggest pocket of votes for Gaetz right off the bat will be the Democrats in the Congressional Progressive Caucus. They hate Gaetz, but more important, it could be suicide for any of the CPC’s 100-plus members to vote to save McCarthy. (And a motion to table Gaetz’s resolution, while not technically a vote for McCarthy, will easily be spun that way.)

Not surprisingly, as POLITICO first reported, CPC Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) is one of the first Democrats to whom Gaetz reached out. Right on cue, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who represents a D+28 district in New York, was on CNN this morning saying she would “absolutely” vote to oust McCarthy.

Both Gaetz and some Democrats we’ve talked to today believe it is naïve to assume that some discussion of the motion to vacate didn’t come up in the conversations between McCarthy and Dem leaders that birthed the bipartisan CR vote. Since McCarthy knew that the MTV would follow a CR, it would be unusual if he didn’t have some indication from Dems about their views on the vote that will determine his future. One likely response to nudge McCarthy in their direction surely would have been that there would be nothing to discuss if he shut down the government. But for now, the existence of any kind of backchannel discussions is speculation.

One senior Democratic lawmaker told us this morning that the instructions from leadership to “all Dems” right now is “keeping powder dry.”

While Gaetz might be right that he can get lots of votes from progressives, his only chance after that is if Jeffries himself locks down the caucus in favor of the MTV. But that could take some persuading. For a bloc of moderates — a mix of perhaps 25 to 40 Blue Dogs, Problem Solvers and Democrats in Trump districts — a vote to prove their bipartisan credentials by keeping McCarthy as speaker could be very tempting.

All of this is to say that if Gaetz only has 5-10 Republican votes, McCarthy may have an achievable path to victory.

But that’s also not Gaetz’s only potential move.

If McCarthy survives with the help of Democratic votes, Gaetz will no doubt relentlessly attack him, as he has already, as “the Democrats’ speaker.” The overall effort will have done a lot of damage. What if Gaetz offers a second MTV, as anyone who knows him realizes he surely would, and McCarthy again has to survive with Democratic help? What happens on the second or third vote? Does Gaetz garner more Republican support? Does McCarthy need to find more Democratic support? There’s no limit to how many times Gaetz could do this. Eventually, this would become untenable for McCarthy.

Democrats who take a position on the first MTV will need to consider that they may be locking themselves into a position on a vote that might be repeated.

What might a deal with McCarthy look like from Jeffries’ perspective? It is highly unlikely that Jeffries would ever demand all Democrats vote to save McCarthy; several Dem members told Playbook this morning that was impossible to imagine. But what he could do is decline to lock down the caucus and let Democrats vote their conscience (or their district). That could leave moderates with room to help McCarthy. But surely those individual moderates would also want something from McCarthy. Maybe a promise not to spend NRCC money in their races? There are a lot of ideas floating around out there.

McCarthy has a card to play if he survives the first (or more) attack from Gaetz: He could try to pass a rule that raises the threshold for a motion to vacate from one member, where it is now, to, say, 10 members. How would he get the votes? Perhaps some of the Democrats who cut a deal to save McCarthy agree to vote for this rule as well. That would finally decapitate Gaetz.

Stepping back from the chess game, the big question all Democrats have to answer — and quick — is whether it’s better to have McCarthy as speaker or not.

On the pro-keeping-McCarthy side of the ledger is that he’s the devil they know, and there is nobody better waiting in the wings. By avoiding the government shutdown, he also just showed he can be more responsible than some Democrats had believed. It could also take two weeks for another speaker to emerge from the ashes of the chaos, all while the White House and Democrats are trying to push through aid for Ukraine and fund the government over the next 45 or so days. And if you are at the White House and care about all of this, in addition to the fate of the impeachment inquiry, which Democrats have already raised as an issue in any discussion of helping McCarthy, then McCarthy may be the better bet. This is the institutionalists’ argument.

The other side of the argument is that McCarthy is the GOP’s greatest fundraiser, and getting rid of him would help Democrats take back the House. No replacement for McCarthy would have the same set of relationships and the donor network and political operation. In addition, the argument goes, the GOP chaos in the House would pay political dividends.

One thing is clear: For the 53-year-old Jeffries, this is an unprecedented situation, one that no minority leader has ever faced. He suddenly has enormous leverage, but will have to weigh carefully how aggressively to use it.

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Police chief who led raid of small Kansas newspaper has been suspended

The police chief who led a highly criticized raid of a small Kansas newspaper has been suspended, the mayor confirmed to The Associated Press on Saturday.

Marion Mayor Dave Mayfield in a text said he suspended Chief Gideon Cody on Thursday. He declined to discuss his decision further and did not say whether Cody was still being paid.

Voice messages and emails from the AP seeking comment from Cody’s lawyers were not immediately returned Saturday.

The Aug. 11 searches of the Marion County Record’s office and the homes of its publisher and a City Council member have been sharply criticized, putting Marion at the center of a debate over the press protections offered by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Cody’s suspension is a reversal for the mayor, who previously said he would wait for results from a state police investigation before taking action.

Vice-Mayor Ruth Herbel, whose home was also raided Aug. 11, praised Cody’s suspension as “the best thing that can happen to Marion right now” as the central Kansas town of about 1,900 people struggles to move forward under the national spotlight.

“We can’t duck our heads until it goes away, because it’s not going to go away until we do something about it,” Herbel said.

Cody has said little publicly since the raids other than posting a defense of them on the police department’s Facebook page. In court documents he filed to get the search warrants, he argued that he had probable cause to believe the newspaper and Herbel, whose home was also raided, had violated state laws against identity theft or computer crimes.

The raids came after a local restaurant owner accused the newspaper of illegally accessing information about her. A spokesman for the agency that maintains those records has said the newspaper’s online search that a reporter did was likely legal even though the reporter needed personal information about the restaurant owner that a tipster provided to look up her driving record.

The newspaper’s publisher Eric Meyer has said the identity theft allegations simply provided a convenient excuse for the search after his reporters had been digging for background information on Cody, who was appointed this summer.

Legal experts believe the raid on the newspaper violated a federal privacy law or a state law shielding journalists from having to identify sources or turn over unpublished material to law enforcement.

Video of the raid on the home of publisher Eric Meyer shows how distraught his 98-year-old mother became as officers searched through their belongings. Meyer said he believes that stress contributed to the death of his mother, Joan Meyer, a day later.

Another reporter last month filed a federal lawsuit against the police chief over the raid.

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Four votes, three possible senators: A wild California campaign year lies ahead

Californians have been represented by Sen. Dianne Feinstein for more than three decades. A suddenly scrambled Senate race could give them three senators in the space of a year.

Feinstein’s death has triggered a bewildering cascade of electoral consequences, infusing uncertainty into an epochal Senate contest that was already poised to dominate California’s election cycle.

Congress members campaigning to succeed Feinstein in 2025 must decide whether to also run in a special election for the final slice of Feinstein’s current term. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s replacement pick, who he says will be a Black woman, could have to navigate a contested field — if she even chooses to run.

“You get into some weird things,” said Paul Mitchell, a Democratic consultant and political data expert. “The ticket-splitting, the double-fundraising — what drama.”

Newsom will soon announce his choice to fill Feinstein’s seat. The timing makes it all but certain that special elections to install a senator through the end of 2024 will occur at the same time, on the same March primary and November general election ballots, as fiercely contested votes for a full six-year Senate term. Whoever wins the special election would serve out the last weeks of Feinstein’s term.

That's four elections — a primary and general for the special and a primary and general for the regular — in the space of eight months.

A series of questions ensue: Would Newsom’s pick run in the special elections, asking voters for the briefest of job extensions? Or would any of the three declared Senate candidates — Rep. Barbara Lee, Rep. Adam Schiff, or Rep. Katie Porter — decide to run in the special election, too, doubling their fundraising capacity and their appearances on ballots?

Those calculations will play out in the coming weeks. A Schiff campaign representative said they were waiting for Newsom to make his choice before commenting on their plans, and a Lee representative said the representative hadn’t made a final decision. Porter did not respond to a request for comment.

But political professionals are already gaming out scenarios. If one of the Congress members enters the special election, the others would likely feel compelled to follow. And all three might choose to run to minimize voter confusion.

Newsom is seeking a Senate replacement who would be content with finishing out Feinstein’s term, but his choice could still decide to run for a full six years. That scenario would be familiar to the governor. Former San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee — who in 2011 was selected to succeed Newsom when he left the mayoralty to become lieutenant governor — reversed on his commitment to a temporary tenure, ran for a full term and won.

And if Newsom’s replacement runs in the special elections, there’s no guarantee she would win. That could mean Feinstein is replaced by Newsom’s choice, who is succeeded by someone else, who is followed by Lee, Porter or Schiff.

“That’s not something that’s free, where you put yourself on the ballot and automatically win,” Mitchell said of the special election. “You could have someone who wants to be U.S. senator for a month, puts $500,000 in, and then they’re in the Senate.”

Past episodes have yielded strange results. Voters split during a 2018 state legislative primary in which the same set of Democrats ran for both a full term and the final sliver of resigned state Sen. Tony Mendoza’s term. One Democrat won the special and the other topped the regular vote, so constituents got one state senator for a few monthsand then a new one for the next four years.

In 2022, Sen. Alex Padilla ran for the rest of Vice President Kamala Harris’s uncompleted Senate term as well as his own six-year term. He won both, but his vote total was lower in the regular election while his top Republican foe did markedly better in the special. Mitchell said he ran exit polling indicating nearly a fifth of primary voters chose different candidates in the special and regular elections.

Despite the confusion and vote-swapping, Padilla’s victory was never in doubt as the Democratic Party coalesced behind him. This time, a crowded Senate race and a short-term pick make the outcomes harder to predict.

“In the past, the appointment was overwhelmingly likely to be elected,” said Mindy Romero, the founder and director and founder of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at the University of Southern California. “In this case, that calculation is different.”

Newsom’s choice could prompt another candidate to jump into the race, Romero said, noting “all it takes is a few big donors to change the game.” It’s unclear Newsom’s choice would want to seek election. Those types of variables could lead to a dynamic few months.

“We don’t know what that candidate’s going to look like, who that candidate’s going to be, how strong that candidate is,” Romero said. “Anything is possible in politics.”

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'It is a surrender': Why McCarthy reversed with his survival uncertain

When he walked into the Capitol on Saturday, Speaker Kevin McCarthy knew exactly what he'd do to stave off a shutdown: Call up a bill that abandoned the border policy and spending cuts he’d preached for weeks.

McCarthy's move marked an abrupt shift after spending most of the year trying to placate all corners of his party — including a dozen-plus hardliners who have made it next to impossible for him to maneuver anything onto the floor. After the vote, McCarthy all but taunted his critics to come after his gavel if they wanted to.

And their first chance to do that will be Monday night. Multiple House conservatives confirmed in interviews they will begin seriously mulling whether they will try to seize McCarthy’s gavel in the coming days.

“I think it is a surrender,” said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), one of multiple conservatives who warned McCarthy not to accept Democratic help to avoid a shutdown.

In the end, the 45-day funding patch that is on track to keep the government open passed with more Democratic than GOP votes, in a repeat of the spring debt vote that first inflamed McCarthy's opponents.

The bill was finished just before midnight on Friday. But McCarthy didn’t unveil his plans to take up the bill until almost 11 hours later, after a choreographed parade of Republicans took the mic during a private 90-minute meeting to argue for exactly his proposal.

Dozens of conservatives ended up voting against the bill, which gave in on their two biggest priorities — spending cuts beyond McCarthy's spring debt deal and hard-right border policies. Still, McCarthy wanted the groundswell of support for it to look like an organic move by his members, rather an order down from leadership.

Mere hours later, a majority of House Republicans backed the type of shutdown-averting bill that the California Republican had repeatedly sworn was unacceptable. McCarthy's 180-degree turn could soon threaten his speakership, giving conservatives who have threatened to try to eject him plenty of fodder to make their move.

“You can’t form a coalition of more Democrats than you have Republicans who you're supposed to be the leader of, and not think that there's going to be serious, serious fallout,” Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) said. He confirmed that after Saturday's spending vote, they would start discussions about ousting the speaker.

Freedom Caucus member Rep. Byron DonaldsByron Donalds (R-Fla.) acknowledged that McCarthy’s speakership is “probably” in danger, but added: “I’m not even getting into that right now. There are other members that have to decide if they want to bring that or not.”

House Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Scott Perry (R–Pa.) said he did not expect an effort to oust McCarthy because Republicans didn't “have any other option" but to bring up a clean spending patch after GOP holdouts tanked their own party's plan.

But Perry — who has himself lost sway with some more conservative members — didn’t commit to opposing a McCarthy ouster. He told POLITICO: “The case has to be made. So we’ll listen to the argument.”

McCarthy’s biggest antagonist, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), has not yet declared that he intends to force a vote to boot the speaker over the Saturday vote.

"That will be something I will chat with my colleagues about,” Gaetz said, just before the bill passed on the floor.

Republicans are waiting and watching the Floridian: Many observed him on the floor attempting to speak at the podium minutes after McCarthy ally Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.) moved to adjourn the House after the bill passed. But before Gaetz could speak, as he held his hand up — Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), another McCarthy ally, who controlled the floor, swiftly banged the gavel down.

Gaetz shortly thereafter told POLITICO that he would have requested a vote on a motion to adjourn, which could have kept the House in session through the weekend, rather than what many are waiting for him to attempt: a motion to eject McCarthy.

There's no unanimity within the Freedom Caucus, with some trying to distance themselves from the gambit deployed lately by Gaetz, who is not a member of the group. One Republican in the bloc, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, estimated that there weren't “many members beyond Gaetz" talking about booting the speaker and predicted McCarthy ultimately came out of the spending fight strengthened — for now.

McCarthy, meanwhile, was defiant: “If someone wants to make a motion against me, bring it.”

He's heard clear warnings from his right flank for weeks that if he relied on House Democrats to keep the government open, he would likely face a forced vote to take his gavel. Gaetz was polling Democrats this week on whether they would back him if he made a move against McCarthy — conversations first reported by POLITICO.

On the other side of the conference, some of McCarthy’s centrist allies have started quiet talks with Democrats about how they could help save the speaker in what would be a historic ouster vote. (The move was last attempted in 1910 and has never succeeded.)

“We’re just prepared for it. Take it head on, don’t run from it. We’ll work our best to defeat it. We’re not going to get pushed around by a handful of people,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a centrist McCarthy ally.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who has refused to engage in hypotheticals involving his party helping save McCarthy’s gavel, deferred on Saturday when asked if the speaker did the right thing by putting up the bipartisan spending bill.

“The House, led by Democrats, was able to accomplish the right thing on behalf of the American people,” the New York Democrat said.

Many of the speaker’s allies have grown tired of the threat dangling over his head, saying that perhaps it’s time for those defectors to put up or shut up.

“I don’t think he’s lost any strength. But if someone wants to do this, just come on. I’m tired of talking about this fight,” said Rules Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.). “They didn’t have a candidate last time, they don’t have a candidate this time. None of the people that would vote against him have the guts to run against him.”

Some are quick to claim that the failure to achieve any conservative policy victories in Saturday's vote stemmed from conservatives' antics.

Womack, who had overseen the floor, later chided McCarthy’s intra-party foes: “This is what happens when you can't get to yes.”

Nicholas Wu contributed.

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Judge blocks 2 provisions in North Carolina's new abortion law

RALEIGH, N.C. — A federal judge on Saturday blocked two portions of North Carolina's new abortion law from taking effect while a lawsuit continues. But nearly all of the restrictions approved by the legislature this year, including a near-ban after 12 weeks of pregnancy, aren't being specifically challenged and remain intact.

U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles issued an order halting enforcement of a provision to require surgical abortions that occur after 12 weeks — those for cases of rape and incest, for example — be performed only in hospitals, not abortion clinics. That limitation would have otherwise taken effect on Sunday.

And in the same preliminary injunction, Eagles extended beyond her temporary decision in June an order preventing enforcement of a rule that doctors must document the existence of a pregnancy within the uterus before prescribing a medication abortion.

Short of successful appeals by Republican legislative leaders defending the laws, the order will remain in effect until a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood South Atlantic and a physician who performs abortions challenging the sections are resolved. The lawsuit also seeks to have clarified whether medications can be used during the second trimester to induce labor of a fetus that can’t survive outside the uterus.

The litigation doesn’t directly seek to topple the crux of the abortion law enacted in May after GOP legislators overrode Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto. North Carolina had a ban on most abortions after 20 weeks before July 1, when the law scaled it back to 12 weeks.

The law, a response to the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down Roe v. Wade, also added new exceptions for abortions through 20 weeks for cases of rape and incest and through 24 weeks for “life-limiting” fetal anomalies. A medical emergency exception also stayed in place.

On medication abortions, which bill sponsors say also are permitted through 12 weeks of pregnancy, the new law says a physician prescribing an abortion-inducing drug must first “document in the woman’s medical chart the ... intrauterine location of the pregnancy.”

Eagles wrote the plaintiffs were likely to be successful on their claim that the law is so vague as to subject abortion providers to claims that they broke the law if they can't locate an embryo through an ultrasound because the pregnancy is so new.

“Providers cannot know if medical abortion is authorized at any point through the twelfth week, as the statute explicitly says, or if the procedure is implicitly banned early in pregnancy,” said Eagles, who was nominated to the bench by then-President Barack Obama.

And Eagles wrote the plaintiffs offered “uncontradicted" evidence that procedures for surgical abortions — also known as procedural abortions — after 12 weeks of pregnancy are the same as those used for managing miscarriages at that time period. Yet women with miscarriages aren't required to receive those procedures in the hospital, she added.

Republican legislative leaders defending the law in court “have offered no explanation or evidence — that is, no rational basis — for this differing treatment,” Eagles said in her order.

Abortion-rights advocates still opposed to the new 12-week restrictions praised Saturday's ruling.

“We applaud the court’s decision to block a few of the onerous barriers to essential reproductive health care that have no basis in medicine," said Dr. Beverly Gray, an OB-GYN and a named plaintiff in the case.

A spokesperson for Senate leader Phil Berger, one of the legislative defendants, said Saturday that Eagles’ order was still being reviewed.

Lawyers for Republican legislative leaders said in court documents in September that the provision requiring the documentation of an intrauterine pregnancy was designed to ensure the pregnancy was not ectopic, which can be dangerous. And “North Carolina rationally sought to help ensure the safety of women who may require hospitalization for complications from surgical abortions,” a legal brief from the lawmakers read.

State Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat, abortion-rights supporter and 2024 candidate for governor, is officially a lawsuit defendant. But lawyers from his office asked Eagles to block the two provisions, largely agreeing with Planned Parenthood's arguments. Stein said Saturday he was encouraged by Eagles' ruling.

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Federal court temporarily blocks race-based grant program

A federal appeals court on Saturday temporarily blocked a grant program for Black women-owned businesses.

American Alliance for Equal Rights, a nonprofit backed by conservative legal activist Edward Blum, sued the Atlanta-based Fearless Fund in August, alleging that the venture capital fund’s grant program violated the 1866 Civil Rights Act’s “guarantee of race neutrality” in making “contracts” by discriminating against other races.

The lawsuit follows a Supreme Court decision in June that struck down race-based affirmative action in higher education after challenges brought by Students for Fair Admissions, a group also backed by Blum.

After a district court judge in Georgia refused to issue an injunction earlier this week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit granted the injunction in a 2-1 decision on Saturday. Robert Luck and Andrew Brasher, both appointed by former President Donald Trump, were in favor. Charles Wilson, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, dissented.

The targeted program intends to support Black women-owned businesses by awarding grants and providing mentorship and business support services — however, in the Saturday opinion, the judges said that it was “substantially likely” that the program was illegal.

Blum has filed similar suits against several businesses that he says use the same kind of racial classifications previously used in higher education admissions — such programs are likely the next target for conservative legal activism.

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History Offers Democrats a Way Out of the Menendez Problem

Senator Robert Menendez had a bad week.

A New Jersey Democrat currently serving his third full term in the Senate, Menendez was indicted last Thursday by federal prosecutors who laid out an elaborate and damning case involving secret payments funneled through an American-based businessman, all tracing back to favors the senator allegedly performed on behalf of the Egyptian government.

Even for New Jersey, which a 2014 Harvard study named one of the two most politically corrupt states in the country, the details are eye-popping. Cash totaling almost half a million dollars stuffed into closets, drawers and clothes in Menendez’s home. Gold bars, the price of which the senator allegedly searched on the internet, totaling $100,000 in value. A Mercedes Benz.

Menendez is a notorious political brawler who has survived scandal before — in 2017, a jury deadlocked on corruption charges that could have sent him to prison for years. But his luck seems to have run out, with party leaders in New Jersey abandoning him in droves — particularly the state’s all-powerful county chairs, who largely determine the outcome of primary elections — and national Democrats like Sen. John Fetterman (Penn.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) calling on him to resign.

In short, Menendez is done. Regardless of his legal fortunes, he’s not going to be renominated next year. But what about the remainder of this term? If history is an indication, that is entirely up to his colleagues in the Senate.

The Senate has not expelled a member of its body since 1862, during the Civil War. In modern times, only the threat of expulsion has compelled Senators to resign, rather than face the indignity of seeing their colleagues toss them out by vote. Several of those historical examples suggest that it’s possible for Senate Democrats to unhinge Menendez from his seat, but it won’t necessarily happen quickly.

No example proves this point better than the case of Harrison “Pete” Williams, the disgraced New Jersey politician who was convicted of crimes related to the famous ABSCAM case. Ironically, Bob Menendez currently fills the same seat that Williams ultimately resigned.

Between 1978 and 1980 the FBI conducted a sting operation in which agents posed as Arab businessmen and offered cash bribes to 31 elected officials. Ultimately, one senator and six House members took the bait.

Williams, a four-term Senator and leading liberal in Congress, was the highest-ranking official to go down. In a bizarre and intricate scheme, he agreed to help an undercover FBI agent posing as an Arab sheik to resolve hurdles in his U.S. immigration process in return for the sheik and his friends making a $100 million cash infusion in a mining business in which Williams held a secret 18 percent stake. Williams and his associates would then sell their interest to a second group of (fake) businessmen at a $70 million profit.

The parallels between the Williams and Menendez cases are striking. While Williams never had the opportunity to stash cash and gold in his home — after all, there was no deal to be had; it was a sting — both men were alleged to have funneled foreign payments through real companies (in the Menendez case, through a halal meat enterprise; in Williams’ case, a mining operation). Both men also allegedly turned their corruption into a family enterprise. Where Menendez’s wife has been indicted alongside her husband, FBI tapes showed that Williams boasted to undercover agents of an earlier scheme in which he pressured the state’s casino authorities to approve a deal that benefited a company that employed his wife in a low- or no-show job.

ABSCAM was somewhat controversial. Lawyers for the defense argued it was a classic case of entrapment, and in the case of Williams, there was something to the argument. During an initial encounter with the undercover agents, Williams seemed to demur. It took several months to get him on board. But once on board, he exhibited little compunction about profiting from his office and boasted frequently to agents of his past criminality.

When federal prosecutors indicted Williams in 1980, the Democratic-controlled Senate launched and then promptly suspended an official investigation, on the premise that such a parallel procedure would prejudice his criminal trial. But in May 1981, when a federal jury returned guilty verdicts on all counts, the Senate, now in Republican control, opened hearings. It took roughly three months for the Ethics Committee to vote unanimously for a resolution to expel Williams, and over the course of the year, Williams, who was appealing his conviction, tangled with his colleagues in federal court over their right to expel him and the proper scope of a full Senate trial.

It didn’t help his case that he was unrepentant. To his dying day, Williams would claim he was convicted of a “dishonest crime,” meaning he was entrapped, because “somebody else creates the situation for which you are convicted.”

When one of Williams’ defenders, Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye, recommended that the body censure, rather than expel their colleague, arguing that expulsion had traditionally been reserved for cases of treason and insurrection, his Democratic colleague, Thomas Eagleton of Missouri, answered in disgust: “If non-treasonous behavior be the sole benchmark of fitness to serve in this body, then one must ask how fit is this body in which we serve?” Eagleton emerged as one of Williams’ most vocal critics and argued that if the convicted politician wouldn’t do them the dignity of vacating his seat, “we should not perpetrate our own disgrace by asking him to stay.”

Ultimately, Williams ran down the clock. Only when his appeals were rejected in late 1981 and only when it became clear that the Senate would expel him on a bipartisan basis, did he relent. In March 1982 — more than two years after his initial indictment — he resigned his seat.

That’s not a story that augurs well for a speedy outcome in the Menendez case. While good money suggests his Senate days are numbered, Menendez is likely to hold on for as long as possible, if for no other reason than to maintain negotiating leverage with prosecutors and to raise money for his defense. He will become an albatross around the necks of fellow New Jersey Democrats and House and Senate colleagues in tough races. His presence in the Senate makes it all the harder for Democrats to build a case against GOP corruption next year.

More recent examples don’t suggest a different outcome. In November 1992, multiple women accused Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.) of sexual misconduct. It took almost three years for a long ethics process to unwind — one that did little credit to Packwood or to the Senate. Facing the likelihood of expulsion, in October 1995, Packwood finally resigned. The same was true of Sen. John Ensign, a Nevada Republican who allegedly arranged illegal hush payments and a lobbying job for a woman with whom he had an extramarital affair. It took almost two years after the first revelations of misconduct before Ensign agreed to resign, and again, only because his colleagues seemed prepared to expel him.

All of which means, it’s in the Senate Democrats’ hands. They can drag it out, or they can expedite expulsion proceedings and make it clear to Menendez that he can leave quietly out the back door, or they can toss him out the front in full light of day.

Everyone deserves their moment in court, but there is a difference between legal and political proceedings.

Bob Menendez deserves the opportunity to explain to his colleagues how, on a senator’s salary, he came to possess a Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible (sticker price, $60,000) and $100,000 in gold bars, to say nothing of envelopes of cash bearing the fingerprints of his co-defendants. He should also have the opportunity to explain why he presumably never reported these assets or paid taxes on them. But the Senate doesn’t need to wait for his criminal trial to unfold before initiating its own investigation, and it shouldn’t take months for such a process to play out. There is evidence in abundance that allows for a speedy resolution of his ethics case and a vote on the Senate floor.

The modern record suggests that embattled Senators will cling to their seats tenaciously, only until they know the die has been cast. Chuck Schumer and his caucus have a job to do. History shows them exactly how to get it done.

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