George Santos’s political future was decided this week following months of mounting legal troubles and relentless calls for his resignation. The fabulist congressman was expelled from the House of Representatives after more than two-thirds of the chamber voted in favor of his removal. What happens in the next few days will also help determine the near-term future of Santos’s congressional district, a Long Island– and Queens-based swing district that will be key to next year’s battle for the lower chamber.
With the 2024 election on the horizon, here’s what can be expected.
What’s happened this week?
The House of Representatives was scheduled to vote on whether to expel Santos from the chamber on Friday, the third time they have done so since he entered office. Previous attempts resulted in a referral to the Ethics Committee back in May and a failed vote earlier this month. But attitudes began to shift after the House Ethics Committee issued its damning report on Santos that alleged that he committed “grave and pervasive campaign-finance violations and fraudulent activity.” The report’s release revived calls for Santos to be removed from office with Republican Ethics chairman Michael Guest and Democratic congressman Robert Garcia filing expulsion resolutions shortly after. Garcia, who filed the first resolution against him, filed a new privileged resolution Tuesday afternoon with Guest’s following later that day with his own. Debate on Guest’s measure took place on Thursday with the official vote slated for Friday.
Santos reiterated his intent to stay in his seat during an evening speech on the House floor Tuesday.
“To set the record straight and put this in the record, I will not be resigning,” he said.
Since the previous expulsion vote failed 179 to 213, support for Santos’s ouster quickly increased, including among members of his own party. On the day of the ethics report’s release, Axios reported that 19 Democrats and close to 12 Republicans who previously didn’t back expelling Santos intended to switch sides. The list of names only grew from there. Congressman Nick LaLota, a fellow New York Republican, said Wednesday that he predicts that between 120-150 Republicans in the House will vote to expel Santos, per CNN.
During a press availability Wednesday, Johnson said that Republican leadership intends to allow the caucus to “vote their conscience,” adding that there won’t be any whipping of votes on this measure. But the House Speaker did express some hesitancy of his own.
“I personally have real reservations about doing this. I’m concerned about a precedent that may be set for that,” he said.
Santos seemed to acknowledge that there was enough support for the expulsion vote this time around during an X Spaces last week. “I’ve done the math over and over, and it doesn’t look really good,” he said.
On Friday, the House of Representatives voted 311-114 in favor of expelling Santos. House Republican leadership including Johnson voted against the measure.
Still, expulsion from Congress is exceedingly rare for a reason: A successful vote requires a two-thirds majority of the chamber in favor. Prior to Santos, only five members of the House have been expelled in the history of the chamber, with the bulk of those expulsions occurring during the Civil War. The most recent House members to be forced from office were Congressman Michael “Ozzie” Myers of Pennsylvania in 1980, who was implicated in the FBI’s Abscam sting, and Congressman James Traficant of Ohio, who was convicted of bribery in 2002. Santos now becomes the sixth.
During the X Spaces conversation, Santos suggested that he would embrace his new outsider status if expelled.
“You want to expel me? I’ll wear it like a badge of honor,” he said. “I’ll be the only one expelled because people did not like me.”
Will there be a special election?
If Santos leaves his seat, whether by (nominal) choice or not, New York state law requires Governor Kathy Hochul to issue a proclamation for a special election within ten days of the seat becoming vacant. The election will then occur between 70 to 80 days following the proclamation. Members of the county party committees will nominate a candidate to run in the election.
On the Democratic side, the once-robust field has narrowed following the entry of former congressman Tom Suozzi, who previously held the Third Congressional District seat. (Suozzi previously defeated Santos when he challenged him for his seat in 2020, but Suozzi later declined to run for reelection in order to pursue an unsuccessful bid against Hochul in the governor’s race in 2022.) Two former candidates, nonprofit co-founder Zak Melamed and Nassau County legislator Josh Lafazan, dropped their bids to back Suozzi’s campaign. Former state senator Anna Kaplan is also campaigning for the seat.
There are several Republican candidates in the running, including Air Force veteran Kellan Curry, lawyer Greg Hach, and retired NYPD detective Mike Sapraicone.
The New York Daily News reports that a potential special election might be held in late February and the already slated 2024 primary and general elections will later decide who will hold the seat for a full term.
What’s next for Santos?
Santos’s troubles won’t end once he leaves Congress. He is set to stand trial on September 9, 2024 for the 23 federal charges pending against him. In May, federal prosecutors alleged Santos directed a consultant to solicit contributions from donors only to use those funds for personal expenses and purchases, among other offenses. They levied ten counts against him including charges of wire fraud, money laundering, and making false statements.
Santos was later hit with a superseding indictment in October, with 13 additional charges including aggravated identity theft and making false statements to the FEC. Prosecutors claim that Santos personally defrauded campaign donors by using their credit-card information to make thousands of dollars in unauthorized transactions. He was also alleged to have conspired with his campaign accountant Nancy Marks to falsely inflate the number of contributions received by the campaign in order to qualify for a Republican Party committee program that would provide support to the campaign. Marks pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States last month.
