As Menendez's indictment and House chaos swirl, NJ college students seek change

In late September, Sen. Robert Menendez, his wife, Nadine Arslanian Menendez, and three New Jersey businessmen were thrown into a legal and media firestorm when they were indicted on bribery charges of allegedly benefiting themselves and the government of Egypt. The charges, brought by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, allege that going back as far as 2018, Menendez accepted bribes such as gold bars and even a luxury convertible — not to mention payments toward the mortgage of Nadine Menendez’s home.

The Menendez case, of course, is not an isolated incident in U.S. politics: The American political scene is awash in scandal and legal turbulence. We need look no further than the House of Representatives and the recent ousting of Kevin McCarthy as the speaker of the House and the narrowly avoided government shutdown. That drama continued to play out into this past week, when Republicans in the House finally elected Rep. Mike Johnson, a hard-right member of that chamber who represents Louisiana, as speaker.

What do younger NJ voters make of these crises?

The widespread outrage about both the Menendez and McCarthy situations leave one burning question that many want to discuss: What do some of the youngest voters think about the state of politics and the recent scandals?

Lizbeth Gomez, 19, a journalism student at Montclair State University, says there's a talk to be had when it comes to those in office in our country.

“A lot of things need to be changed," Gomez said. "We’re depending on people who are really old and don’t know how to deal with technology. How are they supposed to connect with Gen Z and millennials and cater laws toward them?”

And it’s a sentiment that’s reasonably shared among several college-age students like me, considering the current makeup of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Data from the Pew Research Center in January broke down the two by age and generation, finding that 299 of the 435 voting members of the House are over the age of 50 — an approximate 69% of all voting members. The Senate has 90 of the 100 serving senators in that same age range.

Another Montclair student, 21-year-old Victoria Do Couto, says there are “too many old politicians … deciding our futures. We need younger people in charge.”

Union College student Sofia Rivero, 21, agrees and thinks Congress is “filled with old people with old-fashioned mindsets.”

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Still, engaging millennials and members of Gen Z is an uphill battle

The most noticeable characteristic that wasn’t mentioned, however, is that all three of these people had not read up on the Menendez indictment or the McCarthy ousting before they were interviewed.

This means we are faced with three problems:

• We are challenged by ongoing incidents of corruption and other scandals involving U.S. lawmakers.

• We need to more accurately represent younger U.S. citizens in our government.

• We need to find ways to engage younger citizens to build their interest and participation in politics.

Though it's easy to say, enticing millennials and Gen Z to care about modern American politics is incredibly hard — being a millennial myself, I can confidently state that most of my peers have trouble finding a reason to care about a broken system that time and time again fails to take them into account and change what isn’t working. Though I am inclined to agree with them, the only true way to bring about change in our government is to pay close attention to the platforms of those seeking office, and exercise our right to participate in democracy by voting and rallying for those candidates.

Getting younger generations invested in politics and electing officials is no small task, but one thing is clear: There’s no better time for a change in representation than now. If the Menendez indictment and the reckoning in Congress have told us anything, it’s that we have a government riddled with issues, and that younger Americans are aching for fresh energy and new vision for an inclusive representative democracy.

Bryan Jaimes is a student at Montclair State University.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ college students: Poltics have to change, get younger