Democratic group launches robocall campaign urging vulnerable Republicans to expel George Santos
Cami Mondeaux
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One of House Democrats’ top advocacy groups has launched a robocall campaign targeting a number of vulnerable House Republicans, urging them to vote to expel Rep. George Santos (R-NY) from Congress.
House Majority Forward, a political action committee that campaigns against conservative candidates, launched the campaign on Wednesday, just hours before the House is set to meet to vote on a measure seeking to remove Santos from Congress immediately. The campaign targets voters in eight districts held by vulnerable Republicans, pushing them to call their representatives and tell them to vote for Santos’s expulsion.
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“Hi, it’s House Majority Forward with a quick message. George Santos is a fraudster who lied to the American people,” the robocall transcript reads. “He cast the deciding vote for Kevin McCarthy’s MAGA default plan that slashes veterans’ benefits, fires schoolteachers and aides, and defunds law enforcement. Please call [congress member’s name] at 202-224-3121 and tell them to vote to expel George Santos from Congress.”
The campaign targets eight vulnerable Republicans who are running for reelection in what are expected to be some of the most competitive races in 2024, including Reps. David Schweikert (R-AZ), Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ), and John James (R-MI).
It also specifically targets five New York Republicans who flipped several seats in the 2022 midterm elections that were key to winning the House majority, including Reps. Nick LaLota, Anthony D’Esposito, Mike Lawler, Marc Molinaro, and Brandon Williams. All five have previously called on Santos to resign or be removed from Congress but have stopped short on whether they’d vote for his expulsion when it comes up for a vote on Wednesday.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) introduced a privileged resolution to expel the freshman lawmaker on Tuesday afternoon, triggering a procedural vote that requires lawmakers to take some sort of action on the proposal in the next two days. To expel Santos, Democrats would need to get at least 77 Republicans to overcome the required two-thirds majority threshold — a margin of support that is unlikely to come by in the GOP-led chamber.
Instead, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has indicated Republicans would introduce a measure to refer the matter to the Ethics Committee for an investigation. Doing so would delay an expulsion vote, prompting outcry from Democrats who say such a move would be a “cop-out.”
“It is a complete cop-out to have a redundant motion to refer a resolution to an ethics committee that is already investigating this,” Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) said. “So, to every member of the Republican Congress from New York, I say to you: If you vote for this motion to refer to the Ethics Committee, you are complicit in George Santos’s fraud, and you are voting to make sure that he continues to be a member of Congress.”
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The move to expel Santos comes after the New York Republican was indicted by the Justice Department last week on 13 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds, and lying to Congress. Santos has pleaded not guilty to the charges and has denounced the allegations as being politically motivated.
“Fortunately justice is blind in our country, and every one is innocent until proven guilty,” Santos said in a statement. “Regrettably so Rep. Garcia and the Democrats are playing the roles of [a biased] judge and jury. Expelling me is silencing 145k+ voters who sent me here to represent them and taking the voice away from 700k people.”