Representative George Santos became the sixth congressman in U.S. history to be expelled from the House of Representatives after many of his GOP colleagues joined a united Democratic caucus on Friday in booting him from the lower chamber. The final whip count was 311 in favor and 114 against, with two members voting “present.”
The indicted congressman’s ouster from the lower chamber will usher in an ultra-competitive special election in his Long Island and Queens district that the Cook Political Report has already rated a “tossup.” Once Democratic governor Kathy Hochul sets a date for a special election — likely early next year — local party officials in Santos’ district will then choose their nominees.
Santos’s Friday ouster came even as the top members of GOP leadership — newly elected Speaker Mike Johnson, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, and Majority Whip Tom Emmer — voted against the censure resolution over concerns about the precedent that would be established by booting a member before a conviction. Lingering in the background, of course, were concerns about losing a key vote that remains crucial to getting Republican-led legislation across the finish line. House Republican leaders notably did not whip members to vote either way, with Johnson telling his colleagues earlier this week that they should feel free to “vote their conscience.”
The New York congressman’s trial kicks off in September, when he will answer for the 23-count superseding indictment on an array of felony charges, which include wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and credit-card theft. Santos has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
“Are we to now assume that one is no longer innocent until proven guilty and they are, in fact, guilty until proven innocent?” he said on the House floor earlier this week.
Political operatives in both parties now expect New York Democrats to coalesce around former Representative Tom Suozzi, who represented the district before leaving his seat to run unsuccessfully against Hochul. One Democratic strategist tells NR he’d be “shocked” if Suozzi isn’t the consensus choice in the soon-to-be-scheduled special election given his quasi-incumbent status, even as several other Democratic candidates had raised more than half a million dollars each through the third quarter.
House Democratic-aligned leadership is pledging to spend heavily to recapture Santos’s Democratic-leaning district that Joe Biden carried in 2020. “House Majority PAC plans to play a significant role in the NY-03 special election, and we will do whatever it takes to flip this district blue,” the group’s President Mike Smith said in a statement to NR.
And as National Review reported earlier this week, conventional wisdom on the ground in New York GOP circles holds that retired NYPD Detective Mike Sapraicone is the early frontrunner in the Republican race to succeed Santos, though Afghanistan veteran Kellen Curry and Nassau County legislator Mazi Melesa Pilip are also possible picks. But everyone understands that the decision ultimately rests with Nassau County GOP Chairman Joe Cairo in the event of a special election.
“The chairman was in favor of me announcing when I did in July. But again, that comes with no promises,” Sapraicone tells National Review, who has also spoken with the Queens Republican chairman about his candidacy. “If you know anything about Chairman Cairo and the Nassau GOP, the chairman’s only concern is to do what’s best for the party, so the party can succeed and win.”