George Santos Removed From Congress

On Dec. 1, George Santos, Republican U.S. representative for New York’s 3rd congressional district, was expelled from Congress 333 days into his tumultuous first term in office.

This followed an investigation by the House Committee on Ethics that found that the lawmaker misused campaign funds. Its report found that Santos stole thousands of dollars in campaign funds to spend on personal debt, spa treatments, luxury products, and purchases on OnlyFans, an online subscription-based service known for pornographic content.

However, Santo’s troubles in the House did not start with the Ethics report. The disgraced representative’s tenure has been marred by controversy from before he even took office.

On Dec. 19, 2022 – a little over a month after Santos won his congressional district election but before he was seated – the New York Times published an article that sharply questioned the resumé he claimed to have.

Santos had said he graduated from Baruch College and worked at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. But the article noted these claims were disputed by officials of those institutions, who were unable to find any records of him.

Merely a week after the exposé was published, Santos admitted to misconstruing his education and work history. In an interview with the New York Post, he said “My sins here are embellishing my resumé. I’m sorry.”

After Santo’s lies came to light, there were bipartisan calls from fellow politicians for the representative-elect to relinquish his seat. Despite the backlash, Santos was adamant about being sworn in and serving as a U.S. representative – and he did take office last January.

Now, Santos has become only the third representative to be expelled from the House since the Civil War, and the first to be expelled without being convicted of any crime. The House floor vote to expel ended 311 to 114, with 105 Republicans and 206 Democrats voting to expel the lawmaker.

On the other hand, 112 Republicans and 2 Democrats voted against his removal. Opponents of his expulsion largely argued that the action was improper prior to his being found legally guilty of the alleged wrongdoing.

On the wider scale, Santos’s exit shrinks the already narrow GOP majority in the House of Representatives to just eight lawmakers (221-213), which could very well narrow even further.

A special election to fill Santos’s vacant seat is scheduled for Feb. 13. Nominees for the special election will be selected internally by party officials, rather than through a typical primary election. And despite Santos’s republican victory in 2022, that congressional district is not considered a traditional Republican-leaning district. Voters there elected a Democrat for five consecutive terms prior to Santos’s win, while President Biden won the district in the 2020 presidential election.

That fact is why the special election is expected to be a contentious one for both the Republican and Democratic parties. With no clear favorite to win, swing voters are likely to decide which party gains or holds onto a critical House seat in February.