United States House of Representatives finally expels fraudster George Santos

By a vote of 311–114, the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives today vot­ed to expel Repub­li­can George San­tos, a con artist and fraud­ster who was elect­ed to the House a lit­tle over a year ago from New York’s 3rd Dis­trict. San­tos is just the sixth per­son to be forcibly removed from the House in its cen­turies-long existence.

Near­ly all Democ­rats and a good num­ber of Repub­li­cans vot­ed to get rid of San­tos, mak­ing his expul­sion pos­si­ble. Sev­er­al pre­vi­ous expul­sion attempts had failed, but this one came in the wake of a blis­ter­ing report from the House Ethics Com­mit­tee which doc­u­ment­ed crimes by San­tos. (San­tos has also been crim­i­nal­ly charged by the Depart­ment of Jus­tice and claims the charges are baseless.)

“In May, fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors charged Mr. San­tos on 13 felony counts large­ly tied to finan­cial fraud,” The New York Times report­ed. “That indict­ment focused on three schemes iden­ti­fied by pros­e­cu­tors; Mr. San­tos plead­ed not guilty. In Octo­ber, pros­e­cu­tors accused Mr. San­tos of new crim­i­nal schemes relat­ed to his 2022 cam­paign; he plead­ed not guilty again. He has also repeat­ed­ly denied any crim­i­nal activ­i­ty, includ­ing after the House Ethics report’s release.”

San­tos did­n’t stick around to find out his fate, choos­ing to leave instead.

“As unof­fi­cial­ly already no longer a mem­ber of Con­gress, I no longer have to answer a sin­gle ques­tion. That is the one thing that I’m going to take for­ev­er,” San­tos huffed. (He does have a Fifth Amend­ment pro­tec­tion against self-incrim­i­na­tion, but he’s not going to be off the hook for his mis­deeds, even if he choos­es not to answer any more ques­tions from anyone.)

Speak­er Mike John­son and oth­er top Repub­li­cans opposed the expul­sion of San­tos, mak­ing it clear they’d rather have a fraud­ster remain among their ranks rather than lose a vote from their already slim majority.

How­ev­er, they did not whip the vote to expel Santos.

“While John­son and his lead­er­ship team are not for­mal­ly whip­ping against the lat­est expul­sion push, describ­ing it as a vote of con­science, oth­er House Repub­li­cans on the fence are cer­tain to take cues from lead­er­ship,” Politi­co report­ed pri­or to the vote. “It’s not clear that there are enough votes to meet the two-thirds thresh­old need­ed to eject Santos.”

But in the end, there were enough votes.

San­tos’ fel­low New York Repub­li­cans have helped lead the charge. They had con­clud­ed that their 2024 elec­toral for­tunes will be improved with San­tos gone.

“He should have resigned. It shouldn’t have come to this. But it is. And now we’re going to actu­al­ly allow the third dis­trict to elect a rep­re­sen­ta­tive. Some­one that they can trust. Some­one that they know,” said Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Antho­ny D’E­s­pos­i­to, who rep­re­sents the 4th Dis­trict and fre­quent­ly crit­i­cizes Santos.

The roll call from the Pacif­ic North­west was as follows:

Vot­ing for expul­sion: Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Marie Glue­senkamp Perez, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Mar­i­lyn Strick­land (WA), Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Val Hoyle, and Andrea Sali­nas (OR), Mary Pel­to­la (AK); Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Dan New­house (WA), Cliff Bentz and Lori Chavez-DeRe­mer (OR), Mike Simp­son (ID), Ryan Zinke (MT)

Vot­ing against expul­sion: Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Russ Fulcher (ID), Matt Rosendale (MT)

Not vot­ing: Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers (WA)

Ultra MAGA Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Russ Fulcher and Matt Rosendale were the only rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the greater Pacif­ic North­west to oppose expulsion.

Also among the 112 Repub­li­cans vot­ing nay were Lau­ren Boe­bert, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, Nan­cy Mace, Chip Roy, and Mar­jorie Tay­lor Greene.

Only New York Repub­li­cans besides San­tos vot­ed with him: Elise Ste­fanik and Clau­dia Ten­ney. Ste­fanik is a Trump-ador­ing mem­ber of leadership.

For­mer Speak­er Kevin McCarthy skipped the vote along with McMor­ris Rodgers and six oth­er mem­bers of the House, includ­ing Dean Phillips and Alexan­dria Oca­sio-Cortez. (Phillips is chal­leng­ing Joe Biden for President.)

A spe­cial elec­tion must now be held to pick a suc­ces­sor to San­tos. Vacan­cies in the House can­not be filled by appoint­ment, unlike Sen­ate vacancies.

“I am pre­pared to under­take the solemn respon­si­bil­i­ty of fill­ing the vacan­cy in New York’s 3rd Dis­trict. The peo­ple of Long Island deserve noth­ing less,” New York Gov­er­nor Kathy Hochul tweet­ed. By that, she means she will be pre­pared to call a spe­cial elec­tion, because she does­n’t get to make an appointment. 

New York Democ­rats are like­ly to nom­i­nate San­tos’ pre­de­ces­sor Tom Suozzi in the spe­cial elec­tion. Repub­li­cans have sev­er­al can­di­dates to choose from and it’s not yet clear which one of them will get the nod. The spe­cial elec­tion is like­ly be held in sev­er­al weeks’ time, around mid­win­ter or short­ly thereafter.

As for San­tos, we say good rid­dance. After he answers for his alleged crimes, he deserves his own episode of Amer­i­can Greed on CNBC.