George Santos expelled from House of Representatives
Reese Gorman Cami Mondeaux
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In a historic vote, the House of Representatives voted to expel Rep. George Santos (R-NY) from Congress, making him just the sixth member of the House to face that punishment.
In order to expel Santos, the House required a two-thirds majority, and the effort succeeded despite House GOP leadership voting against the resolution, citing concerns about future precedent. The expulsion passed with 311 voting for it, including 105 Republicans, 114 voting against it, and two voting present.
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The vote ends an era in Congress in which, from the beginning, the embattled New York Republican continually made news for his antics, legal woes, lies, and flamboyant interactions with the media.
New York Republicans who have sought Santos’s removal for months took a victory lap after the House adjourned on Friday, expressing confidence they can replace the former freshman with “a good conservative Republican.”
“It’s a sad day,” said Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY), one of the New York Republicans who led the charge for Santos’s ouster. “We wish we never had to be here. But now the focus on is on doing the work of the American people.”
“We didn’t want to spend the first 11 months talking about George Santos, and I hope today is the beginning of not having to talk about him,” he added.
Other lawmakers echoed similar sentiments that his removal was not a cause for celebration but rather had to be done to uphold the standards of Congress. Rep. Michael Guest (R-MS), the chairman of the Ethics Committee that released the damning report, defended the panel’s work, arguing his removal followed due process.
“The Constitution does not require a conviction. The Constitution just requires a two-thirds vote by the body,” Guest said. “I’m not concerned that this sets some future precedent that members will be willy-nilly removed from Congress because of a behavior that people do not accept. I believe this is the exception to the rule, and I believe that probably within the last several decades that this is by far the worst corruption that we’ve seen.”
His expulsion will now trigger a special election to carry out the rest of his term, with state law dictating Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) to schedule an election date within the next 10 days. The race is expected to draw a lot of attention as Democrats eye flipping the seat and further narrowing the GOP’s already-slim majority.
“House Majority PAC plans to play a significant role in the NY-03 special election, and we will do whatever it takes to flip this district blue,” said Mike Smith, the president of the House Majority PAC, a Democratic-aligned group aimed at electing more Democrats to the lower chamber.
Santos had survived two previous expulsion votes, but after a report from the House Ethics Committee that alleged, in part, he used funds meant to support his election to make purchases at OnlyFans, Sephora, and Hermes and get Botox and that he conspired to falsify Federal Election Commission reports, the floodgates opened, and his opposition grew exponentially.
By late last week, Santos was already publicly expecting that the resolution would be successful and he would be ousted. But he didn’t take it quietly.
He spent much of his final week in Congress lambasting his colleagues and accusing them of getting drunk and seeking out lobbyists to “screw,” he brought up on the House floor allegations that one of his colleagues beat a woman and called one of his New York delegation members a “meathead.”
And at his highly anticipated press conference one day before his ouster, Santos did not resign as some suspected. Rather, he announced he would be filing an expulsion resolution against Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), who pleaded guilty earlier this year to pulling a fire alarm in a House office building as Democrats sought to delay a congressional vote.
But the colleagues Santos has expressed his most significant disappointment in are his fellow New York Republican delegation members.
“The New Yorkers all liked me until it was politically convenient to not like me,” Santos told a group of reporters he selected to talk to on Thursday ahead of the expulsion vote.
But ultimately, it would be the New Yorkers he claimed “liked” him who led the charge to oust him. And they said it was not because it was “politically convenient.” Rather, it was because he had made efforts to “defraud the voters of his district,” had “lied to donors and colleagues,” and took advantage of campaign finance laws and his own campaign finances to “benefit himself,” Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-NY) said.
“He has defamed not only his office but the institution itself,” Molinaro said.
And now, Santos has been kicked to the curb and expelled from Congress. When asked if he was sad, Santos said he was not and that he was “at peace” at this point.
But his expulsion is the least of his worries.
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He has been indicted on 23 federal charges and faces a real challenge in avoiding jail time as a number of his former campaign staffers have already pleaded guilty to crimes they committed on his campaign.
“Of course,” Santos said when asked if he was worried about going to prison. “These are serious allegations, and I have a lot of work ahead of me.”