Iowa’s four Republican Representatives voted to expel New York Republican George Santos from the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday morning.
The vote comes after the House Ethics Committee released an investigative report that found substantial evidence that Santos broke federal campaign finance laws on Nov. 16. The report was based on two separate indictments from the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Eastern District of New York that alleged Santos had committed credit card fraud, identity theft, and embezzlement.
The House voted to expel Santos 311-114 with all four Iowa Republican U.S. Reps. Ashley Hinson, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Zach Nunn, and Randy Feenstra voted for the measure. The vote required two-thirds of the House and was largely bipartisan with two Democrats voting against the Measure and two voting not present.
In a news release following the vote, Miller-Meeks said she voted in favor of Santos’s expulsion because members of Congress should be held to a higher standard.
“I did not take this vote lightly, but I believe that we must act on our values and condemn the criminal activities of George Santos, which are not befitting of a Member of Congress,” Miller-Meeks said.
Nunn said Congress takes its duty to determine the fitness of its members seriously today and expelled the scandal-ridden Santos.
“Those who serve in elected office should be held to the highest possible ethical standard,” Nunn said in a news release on Friday. “George Santos probably couldn’t even find the word ethics in a dictionary. He has repeatedly proven to be a con man, and there’s no doubt in my mind that he should be in prison, not the House of Representatives.”
Following the House Ethics Committee Report, Iowa’s congressional delegation all called for Santos’s resignation or, if he refused, his expulsion.
Santos is the sixth member of Congress to be expelled, the third since the Civil War, and the first without a conviction, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Iowa’s delegation previously voted against two previous attempts to expel Santos, before the ethics report was released.
Miller-Meeks, Nunn call for Sen. Bob Menendez’s explusion
Both Nunn and Miller-Meeks called on the Senate to expel U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., in news releases after the vote.
Menendez was formerly the chair of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee but was stripped of the chair after he was accused of accepting bribes from the Egyptian government.
“The bottom line is that the American people are sick and tired of Washington, D.C. backroom deals that protect crooks and liars,” Nunn said.