A growing number of lawmakers are publicly saying they will vote to expel Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), following the release of a scathing House Ethics Committee report.
Santos has survived two expulsion attempts, with some lawmakers who voted against ousting him earlier this month saying they were awaiting the panel’s determination.
Now, several of them say the New York Republican has had due process and they’ll vote differently next time around.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told The Hill in a text message that he would vote to expel Santos.
“The report’s findings are extremely damning and I would vote to expel,” he wrote in a text message.
He’s as powerless as a House member can be, so maybe they want to keep him around to make the GOP look foolish?
That’s what most people assume, but personally Im unsure if it helps much. A functional government would expel someone like Santos for what he did, not hold his seat in limbo to make the other party look bad. Sure it’s quite literally almost nothing compared to the dysfunction of the other guys, but I’m not convinced that adding to legislative dysfunction will help fix other legislative dysfunction with no unintentional consequences.
It’s funny because I’m actually really glad the Dems are willing to not simply play by the rules and only within decorum, but to me I’m unsure how effective this particular gambit is going to be. Santos already put plenty of egg on the GOPs face and no one expects another term from him, his time was always limited, so this move needs dividends beyond just what Santos already brought upon his self and party.
Comparing the next election results of repubs who voted to expel against those that didn’t is gonna be the sure fire way to measure this. Maybe I’m just nervous since the strategy inherently adds risk that we likely will only fully understand the extent or lack of extent of after an election.
The number of people who are just willing to walk right past all the Republicans causing the problems to then blame the Democrats for not saving these idiots is wild.
Not a single Republican that voted to keep Santos is withing reach of my vote. Not only are none of them from my state but I never vote Republican, so my vote was never theirs to gain or lose. The Democrats however do have candidates who voted to keep Santos that I get to vote for or against.
Beyond that point, the fact that Republicans did something selfish and stupid doesn’t mean democrats are blamless in amplifying it. Im worried this may not be super great come election time since most Republicans will be able to go back to their state and tell everyone they tried to kick santos out but the democrats helped block it. There needs to be sweeping losses among the republicans who voted to keep him.
And beyond that point, as a voter of the democrats you’re actually allowed to question and be critical of their strategy, you don’t have to settle for diverting all blame to Republicans. You’re allowed to ask for better.
Hey, you vote how you want. Just saying that if you’re thinking about not voting for a Democrat who wouldn’t rescue republicans from themselves, well, you’ll end up with representation that better suits you, I guess.