When Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez was charged in September with accepting a big sack of gold (among other inducements) in return for pulling strings for a few allegedly shady constituents and the government of Egypt, it took his colleagues in the Senate and in the Garden State a few days to figure out what to do. Sack-of-gold bribery allegations are seen as a bad look in modern politics, but Menendez had beat corruption charges before, and Dems were wary of alienating him while holding only a one-vote majority in the upper chamber of Congress.

After a few days, though, a consensus emerged that Menendez should resign, and that has come to seem like the right decision: Prosecutors have added charges to the indictment against him, and one of his co-defendants agreed to testify against him in a plea deal. Dems have moved on to an eventful primary contest between Tammy Murphy, wife of state Gov. Phil Murphy, and up-and-coming Rep. Andy........

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