Originally published at: George Santos expelled from Congress
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Two of the “nay” votes and both “present” votes were by Democrats. What the hell?!
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You can make a case that he should remain until officially found guilty, however in this case, removing him is the correct call, IMO.
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Has anyone seen which Democrats voted no?
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That would basically be the same as making a case that the Ethics Committee should not exist because only criminal convictions matter, and also that Article I, Section 5, Clause 2 of the constitution was just a big mistake that we should pretend doesn’t exist either.
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hopefully this will open the floodgates and congress can bounce off of rock bottom.
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Weird. Both those members have relatively thin Wikipedia profiles and I haven’t seen any recent quotes from them in the news on Santos so who knows why they voted that way, but both are from pretty safe districts for Democrats so appeasing Republican voters probably wasn’t the reason. I’m sure they’ll be asked to explain themselves though.
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Hard disagree. Right to due process in a criminal trial does not include a right to serve in Congress. Expulsion requires a lower bar than the criminal conviction by design.
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There’s plenty of conduct unbecoming a public representative that isn’t criminal.
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Individual Representatives are free to use whatever standard they want to to decide whether or not to expel a fellow member, including that one, but the Constitution includes no such requirement. All that’s required is that 2/3 of the House vote to expel. That’s a really high bar, by the way, so the hand wringing over the precedent this establishes is ridiculous.
I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating. While it was true that the House had never expelled anyone who hadn’t been convicted of a crime or supported the Confederacy, the threat of expulsion was used many times to encourage a member to resign. Santos refused to do that. It’s very telling that while the House GOP leadership all voted against expulsion, they made no effort to corral votes from the rest of the Republican caucus. Had the leadership wanted to save Santos, they easily could have.
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Fear that the Republicans will try the same against Democrats?
It’s not a good reason, Republicans will try regardless and Democrats are becoming aware that they aren’t acting in good faith.
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Santos/Devolder/Whatever’s response:
“I am happy to report that a majority of the House voted to let me serve out my term. I look forward to doing so and getting re-elected with the support that Republican party has pledged to me. I’ll say more later, but I have an appointment to get a botox treatment (paid in cash by myself).”
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Came here to post this graphic. 
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Speaking of which, when are the Democrats gonna get off their butts and start expulsion proceedings against Senator Menendez?
It sure would be a bad look if Republicans started holding their own accountable and Democrats did not.
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Yes. Menendez came up a lot during the Santos expulsion proceedings. Going back years if not decades, the only time I’ve heard his name is in connection with one corruption scandal or another.
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