House Democrats plan to unveil a resolution on Monday to formally reprimand New York Representative George Santos for blatantly lying to voters about his life story, marking another attempt to reprimand the freshman Republican.
The new measure has strong chances of passing the Republican-led House. But Democrats believe forcing a vote will help maintain political pressure on the Republican leaders who have assisted Santos in the face of a 13-count federal indictment and their vulnerable members who are impatient to jettison him.
“If you are a member of Congress who has informally censured Mr. Santos, then you should have no trouble formally censoring him,” said Rep. Ritchie Torres, a New York Democrat who wrote the three-page impeachment resolution. “He has disgraced the institution and the institution must speak with one voice against his misconduct.”
Censorship is one of the harshest penalties imposed by Congress, having been issued against only about 20 lawmakers in the history of the House. While it does not force a legislator from office, the reprimand is permanently entered into the congressman’s file.
The most recent censure case came last month, when Republicans scrambled across party lines to censor Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, for his role in the investigation of former President Donald J. Trump. The vote enraged Democrats, who complained that Republicans were settling political scores when they should be punishing Mr. Santos, a lawmaker who lied about much of his life, including his education and his religious heritage.
Mr. Santos has few outright defenders, and he has admitted some of his lies as he defended his innocence against federal charges of money laundering and fraud. Republican Party leaders and members of Congress from New York have called for him to resign and pledged to defeat him in a primary next year.
But in Washington, California Chairman Kevin McCarthy, who controls only a narrow majority, has defended Mr. Santos’ right to remain in office for the time being and challenge the charges against him.
Mr. McCarthy succeeded in destroying an earlier attempt by the Democrats to oust Mr. Santos from Congress. He did this in part by promising Mr. Santos’ Republican colleagues of New York that the bipartisan House Ethics Committee would quickly conclude an investigation into the congressman’s conduct that could create another justification for his removal.
Mr McCarthy is also likely to dismiss the new censure as partisan theater, and could try to file it. But there would be differences from the latest Democratic attempt to remove Mr. Santos.
Unlike eviction, which requires the support of two-thirds of the House, a censure requires only a simple majority. That means Democrats only need a few Republicans to cross party lines to succeed.
And while the leaders of the ethics committee issued an unusual statement in late June saying they were “actively working to resolve this matter in a timely manner,” there are few outward signs that they plan to release their findings anytime soon. to give.
Mr. Torres acted in consultation with Democrat leaders in the House and declined to say in an interview exactly when he would invoke special rules to force a vote. An aide to Democratic leaders said on Sunday the party planned to do so before lawmakers left town for their August recess — if the House Ethics Committee didn’t act first.
Mr Santos, 34, did not comment on the allegations in the censure resolution, instead issuing a statement claiming he had been productive while in office. “It’s time to stop playing ping-pong politically and get some real work done,” he said.
Mr. McCarthy spoke to reporters at the Capitol on Monday and declined to comment on the status of the ethics committee’s investigation. He did not specify how he would handle the censure resolution, suggesting it was a distraction from the Democrats.
“This is their whole agenda,” he said. “I think the American public wants to focus on something more.”
Mr. Santos is actively running for re-election next year, reporting on Friday that he had raised $179,000 between April and the end of June.
A copy of the censure resolution reviewed by DailyExpertNews quotes more than half a dozen of Mr. Santos’s most blatant lies, including fake degrees, a fabricated work history, a nonexistent collegiate volleyball career and false claims that he has helped produce a Broadway musical, “Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark.”
In particular, it does not include charges from the indictment accusing Mr. Santos of plotting to pocket campaign contributions, steal government funds and lie on House disclosure forms.
Mr. Torres said he believed “Mr. Santos’ behavior is egregious enough to warrant expulsion.”
“But at the very least,” he added, “we should hold him accountable for public censorship.”