Again our congress is living up to its unscrupulous, lack of integrity having reputation. Why is it so hard for these people to just do the right thing, without thinking of how it could impact themselves or their party in the future? George Santos is clearly dishonest and said whatever he wanted to get elected, and this is wrong. But what is the systemic reason he did this? Because he has witnessed one deceitful bad actor after another do the same thing and be rewarded he played his hand and it worked. Now he is in and you cannot find enough honest people in Congress to vote him out for fear we could start a revolution of honesty. In previous times in this country our society was based on values and honesty, we now have a group that will say or do anything to get to where they want. If you want to see more proof just run an ad for an employee and read the resumes.
Being Duped: The Citizens of the United States
News Source: MSNBC
On the one hand, the House’s vote Wednesday against expelling Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., from its ranks was almost a foregone conclusion. The final vote — 179 in favor of expulsion, 213 against and 19 voting present — was well short of a majority, let alone the two-thirds the privileged resolution needed to pass.
But the vote was unexpectedly bipartisan. Yes, it made sense that 24 Republicans voted in favor of expulsion — it was a group of New York Republicans who had introduced the resolution to boot Santos in the first place. More surprising, however, were the 31 Democrats who joined with the GOP majority to keep Santos in place, at least for now.
More surprising, however, were the 31 Democrats who joined with the GOP majority to keep Santos in place, at least for now.
The list of Democrats who voted against expulsion spans moderates like Jared Golden of Maine and progressives like Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. (Just before the expulsion vote, Tlaib avoided a censure resolution, in a vote in which Santos hadn’t shown her similar grace.) Of those, Jamie Raskin of Maryland provided the most comprehensive explanation for his vote.
“I’m a Constitution guy,” Raskin said in his statement, underselling his role as a constitutional law professor at American University. The senior Democrat on the House Oversight Committee noted that expulsion is exceedingly rare and that “Santos has not been criminally convicted yet of any of the offenses he has been indicted for that were cited in the Resolution nor has he been found guilty of ethics offenses in the House internal process.” He argued that it “would be a terrible precedent to set, expelling people who have not been convicted of a crime and without internal due process.”
It’s true that Santos has pleaded not guilty to the 23 criminal charges against him. And yes, the House Ethics Committee has yet to release its findings, though it said it would announce its next steps in the probe by Nov. 17. But in this specific instance, Santos’ former campaign treasurer, in pleading guilty to several of the crimes with which Santos is charged, has already admitted in court that she’d conspired with him in committing those crimes. Many of the ethical lapses the House is internally investigating have also already been extremely well-reported.
But where Raskin really lost me was when he started arguing that a vote to expel Santos on Wednesday would have been a slippery slope:
“I can think of four or five Democratic Members the Republicans would like to expel without any criminal conviction or adverse ethics findings tomorrow simply because they hate their politics. Indeed, the same New York Republicans who want to expel Santos now because he is a complete political albatross for them acted to vigorously defend him in the spring because they wanted his vote for their party on the floor. If Members are not going to be expelled for purely political reasons, we need to stick to due process and the rule of law.”
I appreciate Raskin’s skepticism toward the about-face by Santos’ fellow New York Republicans. But many of the resolutions’ co-sponsors have been actively calling on Santos to resign, and Republican leadership reportedly had to work to persuade them to support punting a previous Democratic-sponsored resolution to the Ethics Committee. Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., one of the co-sponsors, has already said he plans to offer the resolution again after the Ethics Committee releases its report.
