Rep. George Santos (R-NY) has temporarily avoided an expulsion from his seat in Congress after the House voted on Wednesday to refer the matter to the Ethics Committee for a thorough investigation.
The House voted 221-204 to transfer the resolution to the Ethics Committee, dealing a blow to Democrats who sought to expel Santos from the House immediately. To do so, Democrats would’ve needed at least 77 Republicans to vote in favor of his expulsion to overcome the two-thirds majority threshold needed to pass the measure — a margin of support that is unlikely to come by in the GOP-led chamber.
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Instead, House Republicans put forward a motion to refer the matter to the Ethics Committee, which needed only a simple majority in order to pass. No Republicans voted against the motion, securing the majority vote needed to advance the measure.
Seven Democrats broke with their party to vote present on the measure, including all five of the Democratic members on the Ethics Committee: Reps. Susan Wild (D-PA), Veronica Escobar (D-TX), Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA), Deborah Ross (D-NC), and Glenn Ivey (D-MD). Reps. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) also voted present.
The vote comes after Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) introduced a privileged resolution to expel the freshman lawmaker on Tuesday afternoon, triggering a procedural vote that would require lawmakers to take some sort of action on the proposal in the next two days. Garcia previously introduced a similar measure to expel Santos in January, but that resolution was largely stalled by the Republican majority.
Garcia revived those efforts after Santos was criminally indicted by the Justice Department last week, forcing Republicans to follow through with threats to punish the freshman lawmaker for his alleged misconduct or to defend their slim majority.
“The representative from New York has clearly no interest in the public good,” Garcia said on Wednesday. “We should now refer this matter to the Ethics Committee. This resolution is already there. Now, every Republican should stand up and join us to defend this body and expel George Santos.”
The vote also comes after several New York Republicans, who flipped several seats in the 2022 midterm elections that were key to winning the House majority, have called on Santos to resign over the last few weeks. That list includes Reps. Anthony D’Esposito, Brandon Williams, Nick LaLota, Nick Langworthy, Mike Lawler, and Marc Molinaro.
“The man is delusional,”Molinaro told the Washington Examiner last week. “I said it in December. I said it in January. I'll say it again. He should not be a member of Congress.”
However, all six of the vulnerable Republicans voted to refer the matter to the Ethics Committee rather than expel Santos right away.
A handful of other House Republicans have called on Santos to resign over the last month, such as Reps. Nancy Mace (R-SC), Tony Gonzales (R-TX), and Max Miller (R-OH). All three voted to have the matter investigated by the Ethics Committee.
The move to delay a vote on Santos’s expulsion could be weaponized by Democrats in the coming weeks, especially against vulnerable Republicans running in districts that President Joe Biden won in 2020.
“The Republicans, especially the members of the Republican Party from New York, where I am from, where George Santos is from, have called for his expulsion,” Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) said ahead of the vote on Wednesday. “There is now an opportunity for them to walk the talk and to make a vote consistent with their words. But instead what they appear to be doing is to avoid having to take that vote.”
The timeline for an ethics investigation is not clear, although McCarthy has made clear he would want the committee to expedite the process. He also said he would not wait for court proceedings to play out before taking congressional action depending on what the committee investigation finds.
“He's gotten indicted, but he still has the process,” McCarthy said. “I don't want to wait around for the courts to act. What I would like to do is have the House take action and have a process here.”
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The move to expel Santos comes after the New York Republican was indicted by the Justice Department last week on 13 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds, and lying to Congress. Santos has pleaded not guilty to the charges and has denounced the allegations as being politically motivated.
“Fortunately justice is blind in our country, and every one is innocent until proven guilty,” Santos said in a statement. “Regrettably so Rep. Garcia and the Democrats are playing the roles of [a biased] judge and jury. Expelling me is silencing 145k+ voters who sent me here to represent them and taking the voice away from 700k people.”