(Scypre.com) – The House of Representatives decided to kick out Representative George Santos from New York on Friday. This makes him the first person to be removed from the House in over 20 years.
It was a big deal, and everyone in the room got really quiet when the Speaker, Mr. Johnson, used his gavel to make it official.
Santos left the room just before everyone voted to get rid of him. He didn’t talk to reporters as he left. For someone to be expelled from Congress, more than two-thirds of the members need to vote for it. The last time this happened was in 2002 when Representative Jim Traficant from Ohio got voted out for doing some bad stuff.
Traficant got in trouble for things like racketeering and taking bribes. Santos, on the other hand, hasn’t been found guilty of a crime yet. But he’s facing charges for 23 different things, like wire fraud and identity theft. They say he used money meant for his campaign to buy fancy things like Botox. He says he didn’t do it.
Most members from both political parties voted to get rid of Santos. There were 311 votes for it and 114 against. Even though more Republicans wanted to keep him than kick him out, it was still a big majority.
The Speaker, Mr. Johnson, didn’t want to talk to reporters about Santos leaving. Some people wonder if this will change things for the Republicans in the argument about government spending.
A Democratic representative, Mr. Hoyer, said it wasn’t about politics. He thinks all the House members decided that Santos did things that were really bad for the reputation of the House. They didn’t want him representing people in Congress.
But not everyone agreed. Mr. Issa, a Republican from California, said it wasn’t fair to kick Santos out before he’s proven guilty. He mentioned another politician, Senator Menendez, who’s accused of taking bribes but is still in the Senate.
The Ethics Committee in the House didn’t say anything about it. Some Republicans from New York, where Santos is from, said they had enough proof to kick him out. They called him a con man and said he’s divorced from reality. Santos himself thought he would get kicked out, and he talked about it on “Fox & Friends” on Friday morning.