Democrat starts official clock for Santos expulsion vote

Fierce Democratic critics of Rep. George Santos have officially triggered another push to expel him — the most serious threat against the indicted lawmaker to date.

The privileged motion, led by Reps. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), means the House must act on expulsion within two legislative days. That’s almost exactly two weeks after the release of a damning bipartisan House Ethics Committee report that found “sufficient evidence” of Santos’ criminal wrongdoing.

“The time has finally come to remove George Santos from Congress. If we’re going to restore faith in government, we must start with restoring integrity in the U.S. House of Representatives,” Garcia said in a statement.

Although their effort is unlikely to succeed, with Republicans loath to remove one of their own on a Democratic resolution, it puts pressure on House Ethics Committee Chair Michael Guest (R-Miss.), to act on his own expulsion effort. Guest has already introduced his resolution, but not under the process that forces a quick vote, though he has told POLITICO that he plans to do so.

Guest said Tuesday night that he expects his resolution to come to a vote sometime this week, though he’s unsure which day, and added that he doesn’t “fault” Garcia for moving ahead on the separate proposal.

House Republican leadership is not currently planning to whip their members on the Santos expulsion vote, according to two sources familiar with a Tuesday afternoon Republican leadership meeting.

“It’s our understanding that the speaker and George have had conversations up until recently — even an hour ago — about the right thing possibly for him to do would be for him to examine the position and resign,” said Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.). Johnson didn’t say explicitly he had urged Santos to resign, Hern added, but said that it would save people from having to take “tough votes.”

Santos, for his part, has denounced his critics and said he would face the expulsion vote rather than resign. Congress last expelled Ohio Democrat Rep. Jim Traficant in 2002 after his conviction on federal corruption charges.

Expulsion requires a two-thirds majority of the House, and a growing number of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who had previously voted against booting Santos have signaled they would now support doing so.

“I think Santos is a crook,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), who said he hoped Santos would resign. “It’s an easy vote to expel for me.”

The measure is the second Democratic-led push to boot Santos from Congress after an earlier attempt was punted to the House Ethics panel in May. New York Republicans forced another vote in October, which garnered more Republican support but still failed.

Jordain Carney contributed.