WASHINGTON — Rep. George Santos on Friday became just the sixth member of the U.S. House of Representatives to be ousted by colleagues.
Expulsion requires support from two-third of the House, a purposefully high bar, but a House Ethics Committee report released last month that accused Santos of breaking federal law proved decisive. The vote to expel was 311-114.
It had been 21 years since anyone has been expelled from Congress.
Of the previous expulsions in the House, three were for disloyalty to the Union during the Civil War. The remaining two occurred after the lawmakers were convicted of crimes in federal court. Santos has made his case for remaining in office by appealing directly to lawmakers who worry they are setting a new precedent that could make expulsions more common.
Who has been expelled from Congress?
John B. Clark - Expelled for Disloyalty to the Union; fighting for the Confederacy on July 13, 1861
John W. Reid - Expelled for Disloyalty to the Union; fighting for the Confederacy on December 2, 1861
Henry C. Burnett - Expelled for Disloyalty to the Union; fighting for the Confederacy on December 3, 1861
Michael J. Myers - Expelled after being convicted of bribery on October 2, 1980. Myers served more than a year in prison over the Abscam scandal. Then in 2022, he pleaded guilty after being accused of stuffing ballot boxes in Philadelphia elections during the 2010s. He was sentenced to more than 2 years in federal prison. The 80-year-old is scheduled to be released in July 2024.
James A. Traficant - Expelled after being convicted of conspiracy to commit bribery, defraud U.S., receipt of illegal gratuities, obstruction of justice, filing false tax returns, and racketeering on July 24, 2002. The nine-term Democrat from Ohio spent seven years in federal prison and died in 2014 at the age of 73.
George Santos - Expelled on Dec. 1, 2023, after a critical ethics report on his conduct accused him of converting campaign donations for his own use
The Associated Press contributed to this report.