Congress expels Rep. George Santos on 3rd attempt: What happens next?

George Santos is no longer in the U.S. House.

The former Republican representative for Queens and Long Island was formally expelled from Congress on Friday by a 311-114 vote, just two weeks after a damning report from a House ethics subcommittee found “substantial evidence” of misconduct and illegal activity.

He is now the first member in more than 20 years — and only the sixth member in the country’s history — to be booted from the legislative body. The resolution to expel Santos listed the criminal charges against him in connection with schemes to defraud campaign donors and using campaign funds for personal expenses along with violations of House ethics rules.

While Santos’ removal further squeezes the narrow majority held by House Republicans, his ouster also offers some cover for vulnerable New York Republicans seeking to distance themselves from Santos’ ever-evolving scandals ahead of next year’s competitive congressional elections when their seats and control of the House are again at stake.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, will now be able to call a special election to fill the seat. County party leaders will select the candidates to run in a race that will be watched as a national bellwether of each party’s strength, early in a crucial presidential election year.

The former representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Gothamist.

Expulsion drama

The highly anticipated expulsion vote marked the third effort by House members to remove Santos, whose 11-month career as an elected official was marred by the unraveling of the political narrative he crafted to reach Capitol Hill.

The first-term Republican, who represented a sliver of Queens and parts of Long Island, has already admitted to fabricating large swaths of his biography, including attending Baruch College and playing on its volleyball team, working at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs and owning dozens of properties. Other media reports have debunked his claims that his grandparents fled the Holocaust, that his mother died in the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and that he had staff who were killed in the Pulse Nightclub shootings.

He also faces a 23 count federal indictment for charges of identity theft, credit card fraud, conspiracy, money laundering, wire fraud, theft of public funds and making false statements. The report from the House ethics subcommittee found further evidence that Santos misused campaign funds for personal use including trips to Atlantic City and the Hamptons, pricey spa treatments like Botox and luxury purchases at stores including Hermes.

Santos has repeatedly criticized the House ethics investigation and pleaded not guilty to all criminal charges. A trial is scheduled to begin in September 2024, weeks away from the November election.

Santos is now the first House member to face expulsion in 21 years, after Rep. James Traficant — an Ohio Democrat who had been convicted on multiple bribery and corruption charges at the time of his ouster. Santos is only the sixth member in the history of Congress to be booted, according to the Office of House Historian.

Rep. Michael Guest, a Mississippi Republican and the chair of the House Ethics Committee, introduced the expulsion resolution debated on Thursday, fulfilling a pledge he made the day after the report was released. The measure was called to the floor by Rep. Anthony D’Esposito of Long Island, who introduced the last measure in November.

Speaking from the House floor a day ahead of the vote, Guest said Santos “built his personal and political life on a foundation of lies.”

Guest cited the evidence of fraud documented by the subcommittee’s investigation, including campaign funds spent on personal rent, ATM withdrawals, luxury designer purchases, payments to the online content site OnlyFans, travel expenses to Atlantic City, Las Vegas, and the Hamptons, and fictitious loans that he never made to his campaign.

Several members joined Santos on the floor on Thursday to urge members to vote against the expulsion measure, including Reps. Troy Nehls of Texas, Clay Higgins of Louisiana and Matt Gaetz of Florida, who used his time to object to the process being used to oust Santos as opposed to defending him personally.

“I rise not to defend George Santos, whoever he is, but to defend the very precedent that my colleagues are willing to shatter,” said Gaetz, noting that Santos has not yet been convicted of a crime.

Proponents of the resolution took aim at that argument opposing the resolution based on that House precedent. D’Esposito of Long Island argued that the American public were looking to members to “do the right thing.”

“If we have an opportunity in this great institution to start a new precedent, one that means we hold members of the House of Representatives to a higher standard, well ladies and gentlemen, I'm pretty confident that the American people would applaud that,” D’Esposito said.

A previous ouster attempt in October failed to get the two-thirds votes needed to expel Santos, with dozens of Democrats joining Republicans to vote down the second expulsion resolution. While many of them citied the ongoing investigation by the House ethics subcommittee, nearly all the Democrats voted to expel Santos on Friday.

The final expulsion vote Friday came a day after Santos held a press conference outside the Capitol where he repeatedly warned members of the House that he planned to tell the American public about why Congress represented “chaos” that did not serve the American people.

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What's in store for New York's 3rd Congressional District

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• Gov. Kathy Hochul has 10 days to set a date for a special election to fill the House seat. 
  
• The special election must fall more than 70 days but less than 80 days from when Hochul issues the proclamation, meaning a special election date around mid-February. 
  
• Leaders from the Queens and Nassau County Democratic and Republican parties will screen candidates and select a top contender to run in the primary.

Next steps to fill the vacancy

Hochul must now issue a proclamation within 10 days of the vacancy, setting a date for a special election to fill the House seat, in accordance with the state constitution. That special election must then fall more than 70 days and less than 80 days from when the proclamation is issued, which would mean a special election around mid-February.

While several candidates have already filed notices of their candidacy, under state law the county party leaders will select their respective candidates for a special election.

Jay Jacobs, who leads the New York State Democratic Party and the Nassau County Democrats, told Gothamist that he plans to consult with Hochul and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries about what candidate they will support in a special election.

He also said that he and Rep. Greg Meeks, who is the head of the Queens County Democrats, will hold a screening panel as early as Friday afternoon to meet with potential candidates. He said they will announce their expected candidate shortly thereafter.

The leading Democratic contenders include Anna Kaplan, a former state senator whose district overlaps with the 3rd Congressional District. She announced her candidacy in May and has since secured several endorsements from her former colleagues in the state Legislature.

Her campaign says she’s raised more than $1 million, which is hundreds of thousands more than her last quarterly filing with the Federal Election Commission. She plans to make the fight to protect abortion access a key element of her campaign.

“I think people want a champion for women's rights, someone with a clear record, someone they know will not back down,” Kaplan told Gothamist.

Tom Suozzi, who represented the 3rd Congressional District before making an unsuccessful run for governor in 2022, is also a leading contender for the Democratic nomination. Several of the other Democrats who were running for the seat including Zak Malamed and Josh Lafazan both dropped out and threw their support behind Suozzi.

Other Democrats who have filed to run for the seat include Austin Franklin Cheng, Scott Livingston, William Murphy, and Darius Radzius, according to FEC filings.

For Republicans, a special election in this district is a vital reset after the Nassau County and Queens Republican parties faced scrutiny for supporting Santos.

Joseph Cairo, the head of the Nassau County Republicans, called for Santos' resignation in January. The organization did not respond to repeated requests for comment about how they were planning to move forward.

Chapin Fay, a Republican political consultant who helped advise Santos in 2019, said this will be a challenging race for his party given Santos’ notoriety and how well Biden did in the district in 2020.

Santos diminished the work party leaders in Nassau had been putting in to rebuild their brand and consolidate power after the tarnish of another recent corruption scandal, Fay said, a reference to the convictions of former Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano and his wife on corruption charges.

“To have Santos turn around and not be who everyone thought he was is a problem, right? It’s a problem for winning that seat,” said Fay, who currently works for the firm Actum, which also employs Suozzi.

However, several Republican candidates have already announced plans to run for the seat, including retired NYPD detective Michael Sapraicone and army vet and businessman Kellen Curry. Another name that is mentioned is Mazi Melesa Pilip, a Nassau County legislator.

Even as Queens and Long Island Republicans seek to refocus the campaign on other Republican candidates, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is warning that it will continue to remind voters who boosted Santos in the first place.

“No matter how hard they try to spin history, Long Island Republicans knew from the start that George Santos was a serial liar who has no business representing Long Islanders in Congress,” said Ellie Dougherty, a spokesperson for the DCCC. “We’ll make sure voters know who's responsible for enabling distrust and corruption in New York’s 3rd Congressional District – and that’s the Republican Party.”

Correction: Due to an editing error, a previous version of this story misstated the final vote count on Santos' expulsion. This story has also been updated to correct Kellen Curry's military background.