Robert "Bob" Menendez is the junior United States Senator from New Jersey and a member of the Democratic Party. In January 2006, he was appointed to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Jon Corzine, who resigned upon being elected Governor of New Jersey. Menendez was elected to his own full six-year term in the 2006 U.S. Senate election. Prior to his appointment to the U.S. Senate, Menendez was a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing New Jersey's 13th congressional district. He previously served as Mayor of Union City and as a member of the New Jersey General... Assembly and the New Jersey Senate. Following the 2008 elections, Menendez was appointed to head the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Bob Menendez was born on New Year's Day in New York City to Cuban immigrants who left their homeland a few months earlier, in 1953, seeking economic and political freedom from the repressive government headed by Fulgencio Batista. His father, Mario Menendez, was a carpenter, and his mother, Evangelina, a seamstress.
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