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New Jersey's Supreme Court is considering whether a Tea Party group can try to remove Sen. Robert Menendez from office through a recall vote.

In oral arguments Tuesday, a lawyer for the Committee to Recall Robert Menendez said states have the power to decide whether federal officials can be kicked out of office because the U.S. Constitution is silent on the issue. New Jersey's Constitution allows removal of public officials.

Menendez says a recall of a U.S. senator is forbidden by the U.S. Constitution because it explicitly says the term of a senator is six years, and the federal document takes precedence.

"If, in fact, you were to allow people to pursue a process that would be determined at the end of the day to be unconstitutional," says Menendez, "then the process is unconstitutional and ultimately commits a fraud upon the electorate. I don't believe in perpetuating a fraud upon the electorate."

Tea Party activists tried to begin recall efforts against Menendez last fall, but the New Jersey secretary of state rejected their filing. The group says Menendez isn't fit for office because he votes too much for government spending and supported Obama's expensive health-care reform program.

"I mean, wouldn't you love to go into a department store or a jewelry store and buy everything you see?" says Sussex County Tea Party Chairwoman RoseAnn Salanitri. "Wouldn't that be nice? But you know you can't do it. It's just not practical."

Menendez says if that's the main argument against him, the Tea Partiers are being inconsistent by targeting him.

"I find it interesting that every member in the Democratic delegation from New Jersey, save one, and my colleague in the United States Senate have voted exactly as I have, yet they have only chosen to go after me," says Menendez. "Now, maybe that has something to do with me being the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee."

Salanitri says they chose to focus on Menendez because the other U.S. senator from New Jersey, Frank Lautenberg, is in his 80s and has stomach cancer. "Menendez is relatively younger and possibly has an entire career ahead of him," she says.

She says the efforts to remove Menendez from office -- if successful in court -- will lead to challenges against other federal officials across the country who have been identified by their group as being loose with government money.

Salanitri says she's already been contacted by people in Louisiana, Colorado, North Dakota, Michigan, and Wisconsin who want to mount similar efforts against federal officials.