Convicted Sen. Bob Menendez on Friday took his independent candidacy off the November ballot, ending for good the question of whether the disgraced senator would complicate an election for the party that spurned him.

It also formally ends a half century in politics that began on a New Jersey school board and culminated with extraordinary power on the global stage. Hours earlier, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said he would appoint former chief of staff George Helmy to the Senate seat Menendez has said he will vacate in days.

“Please be advised that as an Independent candidate for the U.S. Senate in this November’s election I am advising you that I wish to have my name withdrawn from the ballot,” Menendez said in a letter filed with the state division of elections.

Menendez had said he would run for reelection as an “independent Democrat” if exonerated on corruption charges, and in June filed well over the number of petition signatures needed to get on the ballot as an independent.

But Menendez was not exonerated. Instead, a jury in July convicted him of 16 corruption counts.

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