House votes to expel George Santos. Here’s how members from Kansas and Missouri voted

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver was torn.

Standing outside the House chamber on Thursday evening, the Kansas City Democrat had not yet decided whether he would vote to expel Rep. George Santos, a New York Republican who has been accused of violating a litany of campaign finance laws.

“I don’t like him,” Cleaver said. “That’s not the issue. But I’m still having problems with due process.”

Ultimately, Cleaver and 311 members voted to expel Santos on Friday, making him just the sixth member, and first Republican, to be kicked out of the House. A quiet settled over the chamber when the bipartisan expulsion vote was announced.

“I am at peace,” Santos said Thursday, a day before the vote. “I have accepted that whether I get expelled or I don’t, I have accepted that I do not control that fate, Mr. Speaker. I have done the best I can to serve in this body and to deliver the best I can in my campaign promises.”

Santos, wearing a black sweater and a black top coat draped over his shoulders, stood in the back of the House chamber as the votes stacked up against him. He shoo

It was the second time the House has voted on whether to expel Santos. The first vote, which Santos survived, came after he was indicted by the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York on allegations of conspiracy, wire fraud, false statements, falsification of records, aggravated identity theft and credit card fraud.

Friday’s vote came after a damning report by the House Ethics Committee that found Santos violated campaign finance law – including using campaign funds to purchase Botox and to subscribe to a pornographic website – and willfully violated the Ethics in Government Act.

For many of the 114 who voted against expelling Santos, the argument came down to due process.

Rep. Eric Burlison, a freshman Missouri Republican, said he believed the precedent for expelling a member of Congress was a criminal conviction, not just ethics violations and an indictment.

Of the five former members who were kicked out of Congress, three of them were removed for supporting the Confederacy during the Civil War and two were removed after they had been convicted of crimes.

“The precedent is that after you’ve been convicted, then you shouldn’t be expelled from Congress,” Burlison said. “He’s not been convicted.”

Cleaver, too, said he was concerned about the precedent the vote would set, saying he cast his vote with “great, great caution” because he was concerned Republicans would end up using the vote against Democrats.

“We have a culture here right now, where ‘if you do it to us, we’re going to do it to you,’” Cleaver said, pointing to Santos’ last ditch effort to expel Rep. Jamal Bowman for pulling a fire alarm to delay a vote at the end of September.

Rep. Mark Alford, a freshman Republican from Missouri who voted against expelling Santos, wavered with his decision in the lead-up to the vote.

“Most people, they get to that point and they leave for the good of the body and the good of their district,” Alford said. “George has chosen not to do that, to hang on until it’s adjudicated in court.”

How they voted

A yes vote means the lawmaker voted to expel Santos.

Kansas

Rep. Sharice Davids (D) — Yes

Rep. Ron Estes (R) — Yes

Rep. Jake LaTurner (R) — Yes

Rep. Tracey Mann (R) — Yes

Missouri

Rep. Mark Alford (R) — No

Rep. Eric Burlison (R) — No

Rep. Cori Bush (D) — Yes

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D) — Yes

Rep. Sam Graves (R) — No

Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R) — No

Rep. Jason Smith (R) — No

Rep. Ann Wagner (R) — Yes