House Republicans are about to discover that sometimes, it’s better to have an eccentric and shady member like George Santos who votes with you than a Democrat who doesn’t.
On Tuesday, voters in New York‘s 3rd Congressional District elected Tom Suozzi, a Democrat, to the seat that was vacated when several House Republicans joined with Democrats to expel Santos from the seat he was elected to in 2022.
With Tuesday’s result, the House Republican Conference’s effort to kneecap its razor-thin majority is complete. Republicans now have an even thinner majority that will make their ability to govern effectively more tenuous, as it will now take three Republicans to tank a bill or oust the speaker of the House instead of four.
For all his faults, Santos has still not been convicted of a crime. In fact, he is the only member of Congress in history to be expelled without being convicted of a crime first. But in a foolhardy effort to prove to the media and Democrats that House Republicans do not tolerate conmen in their ranks, he was expelled.
Governing in the House of Representatives comes down to simple math: majority rules. And House Republicans decided they were OK with turning over a seat they held to Democrats rather than have a little breathing room in their majority.
And with subsequent resignations that have slimmed the Republican majority even more, the replacement of Santos by a Democrat is poised to loom large over the chamber for the remainder of the 118th Congress.
In an attempt to appease the cocktail party class and generate a few positive headlines, Republicans gave House Democrats an enormous gift. And it’s a gift that would not be reciprocated if a Democratic lawmaker was facing expulsion.
Indeed, Democrats in the Senate have not even thought of initiating an expulsion effort against Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), who is facing felony charges that he sold the United States out to Egypt. And nowhere on MSNBC or CNN is there wall-to-wall coverage about whether or not Democrats should expel him.
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That’s because Democrats and the media know their razor-thin majority in the Senate needs to be protected, and they know that if they were to expel Menendez, it would temporarily kneecap their majority.
Republicans should learn that it is better to have a member who votes with you than one who doesn’t, regardless of what the media, Democrats, and House Ethics Committee have to say.