The Bare Minimum of Congressional Standards

So, having completed NaNoWriMo for 2023, and trying to get back into the swing of political blogging again, is there anything out there this Friday I could comment about?

...

Oh, right. This happened (via Eric McDaniel at NPR): 

Members of the House of Representatives voted 311-114 Friday morning to expel New York Republican George Santos from Congress. Santos is the sixth House member ever to be expelled from Congress.

Santos is accused by prosecutors of a number of financial misdeeds, including reimbursing himself for loans to his congressional campaign that he appears to have never actually made — in essence, stealing money from campaign donors.

Almost all Democrats and more than 100 Republicans voted to expel Santos, who will now be replaced in a special election...

You know, I'm still not convinced George Santos is his real name.

This is someone who got caught committing some very shaky con games who still bluffed and bought his way into elected office before anyone even cared to follow up on a background check.

It slowly turned out Santos violated a number of campaign finance laws: Getting his helpers to fake signatures, shake people down for credit card numbers, and spend tens of thousands on personal perks instead of actual campaign work. If there was any positive in this story, it's that Santos set records for fastest criminal indictments issued against a freshman congresscritter.

There had been a vote to expel Santos on November 1, but it fizzled due to it happening before an official report from the in-house Ethics Committee - an otherwise toothless entity - was released. As soon as THAT came out - documenting all the sins Santos committed not only towards his constituents but also towards his fellow elected officials - this second vote came up and this time the two-thirds supermajority needed to expel him was pretty much confirmed.

Granted, Santos hasn't even been convicted yet in a court of law, something the previous Congressmen expelled for their sins had to incur (that or getting expelled for joining the Confederacy). Expulsion doesn't require convictions however, merely the disapproval of Congress members betrayed by their own. Stealing from the voters was one thing, but grifting fellow Republican congresscritters (and their mothers)? Unforgivable. 

This was all happening as the House Republicans are struggling to stay on-message - attack Hunter Biden so they can justify impeaching Joe Biden - with half the party voting to keep Santos among their ranks due to their majority control being the slimmest in American legislative history. The GOP were holding roughly a five-seat majority, which is now down to four seats and even harder to maintain a unified front. With reports that several other House Republicans - especially ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, still bitter about his downfall - are looking to retire before 2024 even shows up on the calendar, Speaker Johnson - more vulnerable than ever for his own Motion To Vacate doom - tried to pressure his caucus to keep Santos to shore up the vote. That he and the rest of the GOP leadership failed - losing 105 Republican votes - speaks to the lack of power they truly hold.

In the meantime, the House will muddle through more continuing resolutions and fights over financial aid to Ukraine and Israel while a special election takes place in 90 days to temporarily fill that seat (the regular 2024 election will still happen). Given how Biden won that district in spite of Santos' "win" in 2022, there is a good chance the Democrats can flip that seat. Until then, inertia and corruption are still in play.

The members of the House may well pat themselves on the back for performing the bare minimum towards upholding some standards, but they have yet to do anything to prevent any future Santoses from joining their little club. There needs to be a massive overhaul of the electoral process: Greater transparency in tracking the campaign money and enforcing against misuse; public background checks to ensure the candidates are even who they say they are; even serious efforts to reduce the expenses and reduce the temptations of all that money bouncing back and forth.

Until then, we're going to see more con artists like Santos play their games in getting elected by hook and by crook into Congress, where the real money is. Gods help us.