Originally published at: Rep. Raskin corrected George Santos's "Thank You" letter and sent it back | Boing Boing
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I’ve been thinking about this since 31 Democrats voted to not kick Santos out. I understand their argument that they think it would set a dangerous precedent to eject a member when they haven’t yet been convicted of a crime, and I reject that argument. Raskin himself rejected a similar argument surrounding the issue of Trump’s possible ineligibility to run for President under the 14th Amendment. Raskin made it clear that he felt the 14th Amendment makes Trump ineligible even without any clear adjudicative decision that Trump is guilty of insurrection. The House rules on expelling a member similarly do not require that member to have been convicted of a crime. The vote to expel is the due process required, in this case. They wouldn’t be sending Santos to jail or fining him or declaring him guilty in any substantive way. They would just be denying him a seat in Congress, and the only due process required by law to make that happen is the vote on the floor of the House. They should have voted to expel.
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Did everyone just forget that Santos confessed that he committed check fraud in Brazil? He paid $5,000 in fines and restitution in exchange for dropping the charges.
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I agree he should be expelled–eventually. But doing it now would probably sweep him out of the public eye, which I think is what the GOP wants. It might be better for him to stay for a while, drag things out, keep their infighting public, so he is a persistent reminder of the moral decrepitude into which that party has so deeply fallen.
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It’s what everyone should want. He doesn’t deserve his seat. He doesn’t deserve to be in the public eye. The House Republican caucus is still making itself look absolutely ridiculous, even without Santos. This is not a problem.
ETA: And by the way, if they don’t expel him now, there will be no need to expel him later. He has zero chance of winning reelection next year. His own party in New York is not going to campaign for him.
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Yeah, but that isn’t why they were trying to expel him. Those were also crimes before office.
He is a total well dressed bag of shit, with zero scruples and a sociopath who needs to resign. I guess this is one reason House seats are only 2 years, because any jackass can get elected at least once.
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* under that name, in the United States.
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After what happened in Tennessee with the congresspersons being expelled for supporting a protest, I am actually in agreement with Raskin. The bar needs to be higher or it will spiral downwards quickly.
I also agree that Santos should resign. Certainly if the GOP actually had any scruples they would expel him from their party and exclude him from everything. Why should it be up to Democrats to expel a member of their party when they have a majority?
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If he is unfit for office (and he very clearly is) then the time to expel him is now. He has already confessed to serious crimes, so the argument that he hasn’t yet had the benefit of due process is not remotely compelling to me.
Democrats purposely postponing his expulsion to the time when it will bring them the greatest electoral advantage is exactly the kind of partisan garbage that makes everyone so cynical about their elected officials.
But they were crimes that were unknown to the public before he took office.
If the FBI found proof that Ted Cruz was the Zodiac killer, then “that all happened a long time ago” wouldn’t be a good reason to let him keep his seat.
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Yeah, but that particular incident was dealt with, with having the charges dropped. I also don’t think writing bad checks is in the same category as being a serial killer. Maybe my tune would change if he had credible accusations of murder, assault, rape etc vs financial crimes.
IIRC the expulsion was for the new crimes where he was scamming Republican donors. That’s the sin that was a too far even for the Republicans. (Unless you’re Trump!)
He is a total shitbag but I understand Raskin’s hesitancy to expel someone just allegations of financial crimes. Biden has allegations of financial crimes. I get the frustration and part of me is with you. I also get the fear of making it easier for right wing goons to go after others in office in the future if they gain more seats.
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Everything about Santos’ political career is based on fraud.
Imagine AOC got sworn in and immediately pulled off a rubber mask to reveal she was not in fact a young progressive from New York but actually a baby-eating reptilian named Zagnor the Capitalist, wanted for crimes across seven systems. Would it be right to let her keep the seat she obtained under entirely false pretenses? Or would it be OK to expel her even before an ethics inquiry was completed?
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Legislate fast, break those things over there. Even though Santos has many, many unconvicted sides and identities.
No time to produce the spiralled vault under the Capitol building in which Santos runs up to duel with Romney (who will be wearing crazy long, untangled, pink paper curls, and a saber.) Ideal as that may be.
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I think the difference here is the Dems were calling for his expulsion shortly after he was elected and his fraud came to light. McCarthy didn’t want to vote on it because he needed all the R votes he could get in the house. Instead, he deflected saying there should be an ethics investigation.
Now the investigation is showing that Santos is much worse than originally thought, and NY Republicans ate trying to jettison him because he’s going to be a millstone around their necks.
The Dems, for their part are saying: no, we won’t let you sweep this under the rug before the elections. You wanted process, we’re sticking to processes no matter how bad it becomes.
As @rocketpj notes, why should it be up to the Democrats to always be the adults in the room? Why should they clean up the R’s mess, and feed R grievance politics at the same time?
Republicans have the majority. Let them expel him, or own the fact they are fine with him in office.
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Democrats shouldn’t vote to expel Santos because it’s their job to clean up the Republicans’ mess. They should vote to expel Santos because he is unfit to serve and expelling him is the right thing to do regardless of what the Republicans want.
On the same note, Senator Menendez should be expelled from the Senate. If Republicans fought his expulsion just to keep the corrupt bastard as a millstone around Democrats’ necks for the next election I would consider that some petty bullshit too.
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It’s not that I hate school – it’s the principal of the thing.
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I think you’ve confused AOC with Kyrsten Sinema.
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I believe Marlowe said it best:
but that was in another country,
And besides, the wench is dead
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No, it’s just politics.
Is Santos a huge embarrassment to the Republican Caucus? Yes. So keep him there, poisoning the right-wing chalice.
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