Torricelli Drops Reelection Bid, Clouding Battle for Senate

Embattled Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) withdrew from his race for reelection Monday, scrambling the national battle for control of the Senate and inciting a legal confrontation over whether New Jersey Democrats can place a new candidate on the ballot.

Damaged by revelations about expensive gifts he had accepted from businessman David Chang, Torricelli was trailing in recent polls to Republican nominee Doug Forrester, manager of a pharmaceutical benefits management firm.

National Democrats considered Torricelli, who was completing his first Senate term after 14 years in the House, their most endangered incumbent.

His decision to step aside could give Democrats, who have gained increasing support in New Jersey, an improved chance of holding the state’s seat--and their razor-slim 50-49 Senate majority--if they can resolve the swirl of political and legal questions about replacing him on the ballot.

“I will not be responsible for the loss of the Democratic majority in the United States Senate,” Torricelli declared in a lengthy and emotional speech in Trenton, N.J. “I will not allow it to happen.”

His voice cracking, his words teetering at times between defiance and self-congratulation, Torricelli presented an extended list of his achievements, but acknowledged that the questions about his ethics had eclipsed all other campaign issues.

“I cannot talk about war and peace or economic opportunity or the environment or the sanctity of our Constitution.... I can’t be heard,” he said. “My voice is not so important that it cannot be substituted.”

But exactly how that substitution could occur is shrouded in confusion and controversy.

Though the New Jersey Democratic State Committee, with 110 members, has the formal authority to name a successor, in practice party insiders said the decision would be made by top party officials and New Jersey’s Democratic Gov. James E. McGreevey within 48 hours.

The state Democratic Party plans to file suits today in state and federal courts to have that new nominee replace Torricelli on the New Jersey ballot, said Rich McGrath, the party’s communication director.

But Republicans instantly signaled they would fight in court any effort to place a new candidate before the voters. Alex Vogel, general counsel of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said New Jersey law barred the parties from replacing their candidates less than 51 days before the election--which as of today is 35 days away.

“If there were to be exceptions to the [state] law, it is highly unlikely that fear of losing an election would be one of them,” said Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), head of the NRSC.

Likewise, Forrester said any effort to put a new candidate on the ballot would “disregard the clear letter of the law.”

Speculation on the replacements Democrats would turn to focused on four names. Several sources said the top choice was former Sen. Bill Bradley, who decided against seeking reelection in 1996, creating the vacancy that Torricelli filled. As of Monday night, party officials had not reached Bradley, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000 and lost to Al Gore. He has been working as an investment banker.

But most Democrats generally consider him unlikely to enter the race.

The other likely possibilities, one party strategist said, were former Democratic Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, a frequent Torricelli antagonist who stepped down in 2000 after three terms, and Reps. Frank Pallone Jr. and Robert Menendez.

Torricelli’s announcement came just two days after the release of a poll that showed him trailing Forrester, 47% to 34%.

The senator’s aides had questioned the survey’s accuracy, but one senior Democratic official said the campaign’s private polling also showed a precipitous decline over last weekend.

The deterioration followed the release of a previously undisclosed Justice Department memo on Torricelli’s relationship with Chang, who is serving a federal prison sentence for making illegal campaign contributions to the senator’s 1996 campaign.

After a lengthy investigation, the Senate Ethics Committee in July “severely admonished” Torricelli for accepting a succession of personal gifts from Chang, including an expensive television and CD player, while trying to help the businessman receive repayment of a debt from North Korea.

“The committee is troubled by incongruities, inconsistencies, and conflicts, particularly concerning actions taken by you which were or could have been of potential benefit to Mr. Chang,” the committee wrote Torricelli.

The panel’s finding hurt Torricelli politically, and his situation suffered again last week when a federal court ordered the release of the memo from Justice Department prosecutors on the case.

In January, the prosecutors decided not to press charges against Torricelli. But in the memo, written in May during the sentencing phase of Chang’s trial, prosecutors concluded there was “substantial corroborating evidence” for Chang’s allegations that he provided Torricelli with thousands of dollars in cash and expensive gifts for himself and girlfriends. Those allegations went well beyond the gifts addressed in the ethics committee investigation.

In the letter--whose release Torricelli fought--prosecutors said that while “the government found Chang’s statements ... to be credible,” they did not prosecute because they believed that the businessman’s “fraudulent and deceptive conduct” had undermined his potential credibility to a jury.

Another hammer dropped on Torricelli last week when a television station in New York City aired, without commercial interruption, a 38-minute jailhouse interview with Chang.

Chang claimed to have provided Torricelli with more than $150,000 in cash and gifts. Torricelli has denied the allegations. But the network reported that investigators had tracked $31,000 in cash spending by Torricelli over a five-year period when he withdrew just $9,000 in cash from personal accounts.

The allegations against Torricelli have been the centerpiece of Forrester’s campaign. After the prosecutors’ letter was released last week, Forrester called on Torricelli to resign.

Torricelli had tried to depersonalize the campaign, arguing that the ethics questions surrounding him shouldn’t eclipse other concerns, such as abortion rights, gun control, the environment and control of the Senate.

Yet he showed no sign of succeeding in shifting the focus away from his personal problems, as he acknowledged Monday. In his remarks, Torricelli appeared less contrite than frustrated, as he listed his accomplishments, said again he had “not done the things I have been accused of doing,” and asked, “When did we become such an unforgiving people?”

Torricelli’s departure is likely to improve the odds of the Democrats holding the seat, several local analysts said.

Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University, said one risk for Democrats is that voters will see the shift as a backroom deal that raises “the whole specter of boss-ism.”

But, Baker added, Torricelli’s resignation will force Forrester to alter his strategy. With Torricelli gone, Baker noted, Forrester must now swim upstream against the state’s increasing tilt toward the Democrats over the last decade. In 2000, for instance, Gore carried the state over George W. Bush by more than 500,000 votes.

“Voters weren’t punishing the Democratic Party; it was very personal [to Torricelli],” Baker said. “Now, Forrester will really have to make more of his own credentials.”

But if the Democrats can’t recruit Bradley or Lautenberg--the two possibilities with statewide name recognition--any other replacement will face a daunting challenge in becoming quickly known in this sprawling state, divided between the New York City and Philadelphia media markets.

Abrasive and ambitious in equal measure, Torricelli frequently broke with his party on some issues, as he did to support President Bush’s tax cut last year. But his views were often overshadowed by his intense, acerbic personal style, which led to his nickname, “the Torch.”’

In 2000, Torricelli chaired the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and proved to be an indefatigable fund-raiser and able strategist. He received partial credit for the Democrats’ surprise gain of five seats in the election.

He cited that work in his speech Monday, saying he “could not stand the pain” if his failings now cost Democrats their fragile Senate majority.