A resolution to remove indicted (alleged) huckster slash first-term Congress member Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., was teed up and brought to the floor Wednesday evening through a quirk of the House rules that prevented Republican leadership from blocking it entirely. It was the first time in more than 20 years that the House of Representatives had a chance to expel one of its members.
But rather than holding a straight up or down vote on the expulsion, Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., lined up his caucus to instead refer the resolution booting Santos to the Ethics Committee. The party line vote, with all Republicans in favor and all but a handful of Democrats voting against, was definitely not the ideal outcome — but as much as I hate to admit it, for once I think McCarthy’s instincts were correct. And I think that the delay will only make Santos’ removal all the more likely.
In sum, Santos’ greatest strength is simply that he’s there.
Santos was arrested last week after being indicted on 13 federal charges, including wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and making materially false statements to the House. (He pleaded not guilty to all charges and then returned to the House immediately after his arraignment.) In effect, the privileged resolution was intended to “put Republicans on the record” on where they stand on Santos, Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., the bill’s sponsor, told reporters on Tuesday after introducing the measure.
But it’s telling that getting their votes on the record was the stated goal rather than actually removing Santos from his seat. Expulsion has a very high bar under the Constitution, requiring two-thirds of the body to vote in favor. And although almost every Republican in the New York delegation has called on Santos to resign, even if they’d all voted in favor of expulsion, the yeas would still be far short of the required supermajority.
The New York delegation was still enough of a wild card for GOP…
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