George Santos expulsion proceedings set to get underway

| 9:29 pm EDT October 25, 2023
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During the three weeks in which House Republicans embarrassingly couldn’t name a Speaker of the House, one of the big questions in the background has been what would happen to expendable members once a Speaker finally was elected.

For instance, George Santos is going to prison anyway, so he’s of little use to them. If they don’t expel him and he’s still holding the office by the time we get to the 2024 election (being in prison doesn’t automatically remove you from office), the Republicans could end up losing a number of seats over it. Every Democrat running in a competitive House race would point to Santos still being in office as proof that Republicans can’t govern.

There are some House Republicans, particularly in the New York area, who would rather get rid of Santos now – even if it means potentially losing the seat in a special election. To that end, some of them now say they’re moving ahead with expulsion proceedings against Santos as soon as this week.

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out strategically. On the one hand, House Republican leadership would probably rather not risk losing Santos’ seat right now, in case there ends up being yet another vote to vacate the Speaker. On the other hand, if House Republicans in the New York area want Santos gone so badly that they’re forcing the issue like this, it’ll be difficult for House Republican leadership to say no to them.

So it’s possible that we’ll soon end up seeing George Santos’ expulsion put to a full House floor vote. Given that it would only take about one-third of House Republicans (and all House Democrats) to reach the two-thirds threshold for expulsion, he could indeed soon be expelled.

We’ll see what happens. George Santos is poison either way, and House Republicans will now have to pick their poison. In any case, now is the time to get to know Democratic candidate Anna Kaplan, who is already set to run against Santos in 2024, and will be the presumptive Democratic candidate if a special election to replace Santos happens sooner.