Kenny Holston / New York Times, file
Rep. George Santos, (R-N.Y.) at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, May 30, 2023. Santos faces federal criminal charges, an ethics inquiry, and a potential censure vote.
Tuesday, July 18, 2023 | 2 a.m.
House Democrats plan to unveil a resolution Monday to formally censure Rep. George Santos of New York for blatantly lying to voters about his life story, teeing up a fresh attempt to reprimand the first-term Republican.
The new measure faces long odds of passing the Republican-led House. But Democrats believe forcing a vote will help maintain political pressure on Republican leaders who have stood by Santos in the face of a 13-count federal indictment and their vulnerable members impatient to jettison him.
“If you are a member of Congress who has informally condemned Santos, then you should have no trouble formally censuring him,” said Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., who wrote the three-page censure resolution. “He has disgraced the institution, and the institution should speak with one voice against his misconduct.”
Censure is one of Congress’ stiffest punishments, and has been leveled against only two dozen or so lawmakers in the history of the House. Though it does not force a lawmaker from office, the rebuke is permanently recorded on the Congress member’s record.
The most recent censure case occurred just last month, when Republicans muscled through party lines to censure Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., over his role investigating former President Donald Trump. The vote infuriated Democrats, who complained that Republicans were settling political scores when they should be punishing Santos, a lawmaker who lied about much of his life, including his education and his religious ancestry.
Santos has few outright defenders, and he has admitted to some of his lies, while defending his innocence against federal money laundering and wire fraud charges. Republican Party leaders and members of Congress from New York have called for him to resign and vowed to defeat him in a primary next year.
But in Washington, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, D-Calif., who controls only a narrow majority, has defended Santos’ right to remain in office for now and fight the charges against him.
McCarthy succeeded in killing an earlier attempt by Democrats to expel Santos from Congress. He did so in part by promising Santos’ Republican colleagues from New York that the bipartisan House Ethics Committee would quickly complete an investigation into the congressman’s conduct that could create another justification for his removal.
McCarthy is likely to dismiss the new censure push as partisan theater as well, and could seek to table it. But there would be differences from the last Democratic effort to remove Santos.
Unlike expulsion, which requires the support of two-thirds of the House, a censure vote requires only a simple majority. That means Democrats would need just a few Republicans to cross party lines to succeed.
And while Ethics Committee leaders released an unusual statement in late June indicating that they were “actively working to resolve this matter in an expeditious time frame,” there have been few outward signs that they plan to release their findings anytime soon.
Torres was acting in coordination with House Democratic leaders, and declined to say in an interview precisely when he would invoke special rules to force a vote. A Democratic leadership aide said Sunday that the party intended to do so before lawmakers left town for their August recess — if the House Ethics Committee did not act first.
Santos, 34, did not comment on accusations outlined in the censure resolution, instead issuing a statement that asserted that he had been productive while in office. “It is time to stop the political pingpong and get real work done,” he said.
Speaking to reporters in the Capitol on Monday, McCarthy declined to comment on the status of the Ethics Committee investigation. He did not indicate how he would handle the censure resolution, suggesting it was a distraction from Democrats.
“This is their entire agenda,” he said. “I think the American public wants to focus on a little more.”
Santos is actively running for reelection next year and reported Friday that he had raised $179,000 between April and the end of June.
A copy of the censure resolution reviewed by The New York Times cites more than a half-dozen of Santos’ most egregious lies, including fake degrees, a concocted job history, a nonexistent collegiate volleyball career and false claims that he helped produce a Broadway musical, “Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark.”
Notably, it does not incorporate allegations from the indictment accusing Santos of schemes to pocket campaign contributions, steal public funds and lie on House disclosure forms.
Torres said he believed that “Mr. Santos’ conduct is egregious enough to warrant expulsion.”
“But at a minimum,” he added, “we should hold him accountable to public censure.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
