By Karen Rubin, News-Photos-Features.com
The House finally, on its third attempt, expelled George Santos, ridding us in NY-03 of this criminal do-nothing and national disgrace and laughingstock who so maligned and blighted our district, denying our 750,000 souls fair,equal representation in Congress, tainting Congress with corruption and undermining public confidence and trust in government.
The historic vote to expel George Santos from Congress would not have happened but for the extraordinarily effective Concerned Citizens of NY-03, an ad hoc, nonpartisan group of constituents who have come together in their anger at George Santos’s deception, doggedly dedicated to the sole purpose of having Santos removed from Congress.
Led by Jody Kass Finkel, her articulate, reasoned, legalistic arguments in the form of press releases and her effective organization of a steady stream of rallies, kept up the pressure on Congressional Republicans. Up until now seeming impervious to shame or hypocrisy, this organization forced them –most specifically, the Long Island Republicans – to take action.
“For nearly a year, the residents of NY’s Third Congressional District have been saddled with the fraudster George Santos as our Congressman - all because the GOP needed his reliable vote to shore up their political weakness,”Kass stated in a press release. “Finally, when they could no longer hide behind the House Ethics Committee’s months-long ongoing investigation, the GOP relented and decided it was time to support the expulsion of George Santos. The final vote tally was 311 for expulsion (206 Democrats and 105 Republicans); 114 against expulsion (112 Republicans and 2 Democrats); and 2 Democrats voting present.”
But the fact that a majority of Congressional Republicans including all four top Republican leaders still voted to keep Santos in Congress and all that he stood for, despite the “unprecedented” offenses documented in the damning report by none other than the House Ethics Committee, says everything.
Notably, Elise Stefanik, representing NY’s 21 district, has risen to top leadership by becoming a major MAGA champion, 2020 election denier and Trump enabler, who was disclosed to have known of Santos’ frauds before the 2020 campaign, never stood up for honest government, public service, nor upholding the oath of office. She is in the camp of politicians-to-keep-power-and-profit at all costs, even their soul.
Here’s the thing; those who used the excuse to “wait for the courts to rule”, “voters should decide” and “it’s bad to overturn an election” have been shown to be effective delay tactics, as they manipulate both the judicial process and elections.
There is kind of a “unvirtuous circle”, perfected by Trump in the way he used the “voters should decide” to escape two impeachments, while his enablers have worked diabolically to make sure voters don’t get to decide – through voter suppression, election subversion, and extreme gerrymandering – while at the same time frustrating the criminal and civil prosecutions through strategic delays and intimidation of judges, attorneys, prosecutors, witnesses and jurors.
And yet, Republicans show they will censure, recall, remove, impeach, even ignore Supreme Court decisions, at the drop of a hat, and nullify or neuter the powers of the president or governor – for example, holding up nominations and confirmations - when it suits. And no doubt they will use this expulsion as precedent to go after Democrats, in an unbalanced tit-for-tat.
It's not coincidence that just days after expelling Santos, Republicans are pushing forward with a formal vote to start impeachment against President Biden, holding up critical votes for defense aid to Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan in what is being called a "dramatic escalation of impeachment as a political weapon."
Santos’ expulsion, while historic, does not for a second discount the forward motion of the Republican party, now totally dominated by a fascist,authoritarian movement, to end democracy. Santos was important only because of the narrow, now narrower Republican majority, but he is such small potatoes, an insignificant prickly insect whose biggest offense was posing a distraction and a symbol of the wholesale criminal rot running through what is left of the Republican (MAGA) party. Yet it took “unprecedented” overt, outrageous antics and egregious criminality and a committed grassroots coalition to expel him.
“For nearly a year, the residents of NY’s Third Congressional District have been saddled with the fraudster George Santos as our Congressman - all because the GOP needed his reliable vote to shore up their political weakness.Finally, when they could no longer hide behind the House Ethics Committee’s months-long ongoing investigation, the GOP relented and decided it was time to support the expulsion of George Santos,” Kass stated.
What is most remarkable, Kass stated, is that Santos is attacking the NY GOP political machine that previously endorsed and supported him, despite his known weaknesses. There are multiple reports that Republican Conference Chair,New York’s own Rep. Elise Stefanik, knew that George Santos was a fraud a full year before he was elected. But the GOP chose to run Santos as their endorsed candidate anyway. In fact, Stefanik vouched for Santos with donors, raised money for him, and sent top political aides to help Santos when his campaign team resigned, after learning he was a total fraud.
”Reports indicate that Nassau GOP Chairman Joe Cairo knew Santos was a fraud, and that he pressured Grant Lally, publisher of the North Shore Leader, to delay publishing the exposé about Santos until after the election,” Kass stated. “Indeed, it has been reported that before the election, ‘everyone in the know’ in the GOP knew there was something wrong with Santos...
“At some point, there needs to be a reckoning over how and why the NY Republicans engineered and supported Santos’ candidacy, as well as his ability to remain in Congress for nearly a year after he admitted on national TV that he lied because he knew it was the only way he could get elected,” Kass stated. “And that reckoning should start with Republican Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik and Nassau County GOP Party Chair Joe Cairo.
“The NY GOP political machine has already saddled the residents of NY-03 and the country at-large with a fraudster once. The GOP owes us a full accounting as to how George Santos was vetted,selected, funded and endorsed, and it must be provided BEFORE the residents are asked to vote for the GOP’s next candidate for our seat.”
The key is to prevent another George Santos from ever becoming a candidate in the first place. debacle. Concerned Citizens is advocating passage of legislation - H.R.350: the SANTOS Act: Stopping Another Non-Truthful Office Seeker Act - aimed at protecting against future imposter candidates. That bill, which was introduced January 12th by Rep. Dan Goldman and Rep. Ritchie Torres, would create new reporting requirements about a candidate’s educational background, military service and employment history.
“The country clearly needs stronger guardrails when it comes to the vetting of those who seek our highest offices. One important takeaway from the Santos National Nightmare must be that no one can lie their way into Congress and be rewarded by serving at the highest levels of our government and earning a six-figure government salary.”
To date, the bill has 12 Democrats but no Republicans (big surprise)co-sponsors. Unless at least one Republican co-sponsors, the bill cannot advance. My bet is that the bill will be quashed, now that Santos is gone (just as the DISCLOSE Act and Voting Rights bills have been).
It will now be up to party leaders to select the candidate for the special election to be held in February 2024 to fill the unexpired term (a primary will be held in June to set the candidates for the 2024 Congressional election).
The key criteria for Jay Jacobs, who is chairing the Democratic committee,is who is in the best position to win (and beat the likely Republican candidate, I’m betting will be State Senator Jack Martins who did so much to redistrict in Republicans’ favor). This is a must-win election.
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