George Santos could join list of Confederates, felons booted from Congress. What to know
A group of House Republicans introduced a resolution to expel embattled New York Rep. George Santos from Congress. If their scheme is successful, Santos would join a short list of Confederates and convicted felons who have been drummed out of the Capitol over the past two centuries.
“Today, I’ll be introducing an expulsion resolution to rid the People’s House of fraudster, George Santos,” Rep. Anthony D’Esposito said on Oct. 11 on X. Five other freshmen Republican representatives from the Empire State co-sponsored the legislation.
The move to oust Santos, 35, came the day after he was indicted on federal charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and credit card fraud.
New York prosecutors accuse him of repeatedly charging donors’ credit cards without their permission and stealing the identities of his family members, among other charges.
Santos was first indicted in May and pleaded not guilty to the original 13 counts, according to the Associated Press.
“I look very much forward to seeing the anti American attempt by WEAK RINO’s to oust me without giving me my right to Due process,” Santos said on X, hours after his fellow lawmakers’ announced their intent to force him out.
“I will have a lot of time on my hands to return the favor in the most expedient fashion mankind has ever seen,” Santos tweeted.
When contacted by McClatchy News, a spokesperson for Santos’ office said, “All legal matters are not discussed by the official office.”
Expulsion
When a newly elected member of Congress goes to Washington, they tend to stick around, winning re-election after re-election. Some even hold onto power for decades, including Iowa Rep. Chuck Grassley and Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, who have both been in Congress for nearly a half-century.
But an unlucky few, about 10%, are tossed from their seats each cycle, according to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks political campaigns.
An even smaller number of lawmakers have been booted from the halls of Congress, not by their constituents, but by their colleagues, through a process known as expulsion.
This rare and drastic action is outlined in the Constitution, which states that the House and Senate can punish members for “disorderly behavior” by expelling them with a two-thirds vote.
“While there are no specific grounds for an expulsion expressed in the Constitution,” according to a Congressional Research Service report, “expulsion actions in both the House and the Senate have generally concerned cases of perceived disloyalty to the United States, or the conviction of a criminal statutory offense which involved abuse of one’s official position.”
Since the founding of the Republic, just 20 members of Congress — 15 senators and 5 representatives — have been ousted from their positions through expulsion.
Confederates and convicted felons
William Blount, a Revolutionary War veteran turned Tennessee senator, holds the dishonorable distinction of being the first lawmaker to be expelled from Congress.
Blount, who served in the Continental Congress, became embroiled in a scandal related to his land holdings, according to Senate records.
He devised a scheme for frontier settlers and Native Americans to invade Spanish Louisiana and Florida so that the territories could be transferred to England, benefiting him financially.
“Unfortunately for the senator, a letter, in which Blount thinly disguised his desire to arouse the Creek and Cherokee Indians to aid his plan, fell into the hands of Federalist president John Adams,” according to Senate records.
After his letter was sent to Congress, he was charged with anti-Spanish conspiracy and treason and was expelled from the body in 1797.
But the vast majority of expelled lawmakers, 17 of the 20, were discharged for plotting against the United States and siding with the Confederacy during the Civil War.
Ten of those lawmakers, all from southern states, were ejected from the Capitol in one day. On July 11, 1861, after they were charged with aiding the “conspiracy for the destruction of the Union and Government,” they were expelled, according to Senate records.
After its recurrent use during the Civil War, expulsion as a punitive measure fell out of fashion. No senators since then have been subjected to it.
But two representatives, both convicted of crimes, have been ousted via expulsion in more modern times.
Michael “Ozzie” Myers, a Democratic Pennsylvania representative first elected in 1975, was expelled from Congress shortly after being convicted of bribery and sentenced to prison in 1980, according to House records.
He was again sentenced to prison in 2022 and ordered to pay $100,000 in fines after admitting to bribing a judge of elections in Philadelphia, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
And most recently, Democratic Ohio Representative James Traficant, first elected in 1985, was convicted of taking kickbacks and bribes and sentenced to prison in 2002, according to the Columbus Dispatch. He was expelled the same year.
Prosecutors said that in addition to extracting bribes from businesspeople, according to the outlet, he forced his staffers to work on his houseboat and farm.
Now as for Santos, he’ll be waiting to see if the resolution goes up for a vote and whether he, like the 20 members before him, will be cast from the halls of Congress.
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