New York Republican George Santos faces the most serious threat yet to his short and tumultuous tenure in Congress, as a fellow House lawmaker moved to force a new vote on his expulsion this week.
The House has failed twice to muster the two-thirds majority needed to expel the 35-year-old from the US House for a well-documented series of campaign lies and election finance irregularities.
But the latest attempt follows a scathing Ethics Committee report finding that he had stolen from campaign donors and used the money for Botox treatments, luxury goods and a web site commonly associated with porn.
Representative Robert Garcia, a California Democrat, triggered the latest push to oust Santos on Tuesday, invoking a House rule to force a vote within two legislative days. Garcia made the move after House Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest, a Mississippi Republican, introduced an expulsion resolution but did not call for an immediate vote.
“We want to make sure that that happens this week. I think whatever it takes to get that vote this week is what we’re doing,” Garcia said. “He has no place in Congress.”
The exact timing of the vote is up to House Speaker Mike Johnson.
The Ethics Committee’s findings shifted thinking on Santos among some Republicans previously hesitant to act before a criminal trial verdict. Johnson had been reluctant to remove Santos, given his party’s narrow majority in the chamber. With the swearing-in of newly elected Utah Republican Celeste Maloy scheduled for Tuesday evening, Republicans will control the chamber by a slender 222-213 majority.
The speaker has spoken to Santos at least once in recent days about the congressman’s “options,” signaling a search for an endgame to the drama nearly a year after reports of Santos’s fabricated resume first surfaced.
Santos, who also faces criminal charges ranging from unemployment insurance fraud and money-laundering to making unauthorized charges on campaign donors’ credit cards, has maintained his innocence and said he would face the expulsion vote rather than resign.
Expulsions are extremely rare — only five members have ever been removed from the House, with the most recent being Ohio Democrat James Traficant in 2002.
If the House removes Santos, New York would have a special election to fill the seat within 90 days — with the exact date to be determined by Governor Kathy Hochul. Santos’s district covers northern Nassau County on Long Island and part of the New York City Borough of Queens.
