The US House expelled George Santos, ending a brief but sensational turn in national politics by a serial fabulist now under criminal indictment for fraud, theft and lying to the government.
The bipartisan 311-114 vote Friday to remove the New York Republican surpassed the two-thirds majority required by the Constitution to oust a member of Congress. It was the third try by critics to remove Santos, with many Republicans who had previously blocked his expulsion switching sides after an Ethics Committee investigation substantiated salacious new allegations of theft and deceit.
Santos, who left the chamber before the vote concluded, is the first House member to be expelled since Ohio Democrat James Traficant in 2002, and only the sixth in US history.
“It’s over. What reaction?” Santos said when asked for his response. He then told reporters he didn’t need to answer questions because he was no longer a member of Congress.
How and Why Congress Expels a Member, Like Santos: QuickTake
The typically raucous chamber was silent after the vote, followed by scattered applause.
His departure creates an open seat in a Democratic-leaning Long Island district and erodes the narrow Republican majority in the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson will have one fewer dependable vote. The speaker, who voted against expulsion, now can’t afford to lose more than three GOP members on a party-line vote.
Johnson’s top lieutenants — including Steve Scalise, Tom Emmer and Elise Stefanik — also voted against expelling Santos. But 105 Republicans — nearly half the party — ultimately joined most Democrats to oust the indicted New Yorker.
“This was an issue of moral clarity,” New York Republican Mike Lawler said. “He was unfit to serve.”
Voters in northwest Queens and northern Nassau County will fill the seat by a special election in a district that President Joe Biden won by eight points. The election will be held within 90 days on a date to be announced by New York Governor Kathy Hochul.
New York political parties will select their candidates for the special election without a primary. Democrats are coalescing around former Representative Tom Suozzi, while former JPMorgan Chase & Co. Vice President Kellen Curry has picked up endorsements on the Republican side.
Santos’s expulsion marks the climax of political saga that fascinated late night comics and raised questions about how a candidate who campaigned on audacious falsehoods about his biography could get elected to federal office with little vetting by political parties or the media.
The Republican-led House ethics panel last month added to allegations against him, finding that he had used campaign funds to finance a Las Vegas honeymoon, Botox treatments, a $4,127 Hermes bill and purchases on websites associated with pornography.
--With assistance from Jack Fitzpatrick and Erik Wasson.
(Updates starting in sixth paragraph)