Robert Menendez was born on January 1, 1954, and is an American lawyer and politician who has been serving as the senior United States senator from New Jersey since 2006.
Menendez's political career began in 1974, when he was elected to the Union City School District's Board of Education at the age of 20.
He received his education from Saint Peter's University and Rutgers Law School, and in 1986, he was elected as the mayor of Union City.
While continuing to serve as mayor, Menendez was elected to represent the state's 33rd district in the New Jersey General Assembly in 1988, and he moved to the New Jersey Senate in 1991, after winning a special election for the 33rd Senate district.
Menendez then won a seat in the House of Representatives, representing New Jersey's 13th congressional district from 1993 to 2006.
In 2006, he was appointed to fill the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Jon Corzine, who had been elected as the governor of New Jersey, and Menendez was elected to a full six-year term in November of that year.
He was reelected in 2012 and 2018, and he has chaired the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations since 2021.
However, in 2015, Menendez was indicted on federal corruption charges, although the jury was unable to reach a verdict, and the charges were dropped in 2018.
In April 2018, the United States Senate Select Committee on Ethics "severely admonished" Menendez for accepting gifts from donor Salomon Melgen without obtaining committee approval, for failing to disclose certain gifts, and for using his position as a senator to advance Melgen's interests.
