Missourians have seen this before. But not recently.
Thirty-one Democratic members of the U. S. House joined Republicans a few days ago in voting down a resolution to expel New York Congressman George Santos. Some of those 31 have taken to social media to explain why they did that.
It’s a matter of due process for them. Santos has not been convicted of any of the 23 felony crimes he’s charged with committing. Beyond that, though, is the way the House deals with due process. It’s called the House Ethics Committee.
The committee is considering action against Santos after reviewing more than 170-thousand pages of documents, authorizing 37 subpoenas, and interviewing about 40 witnesses. The committee says it will announce its next action by November 17.
The committee is acting under Article I, section 5 of the U. S. Constitution’s provision that, “Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and with concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member.”
Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin, a former professor of constitutional law, explains, “If and when Santos is convicted of these serious criminal offenses or ethics charges, I will certainly vote to expel. Until then, it is a very risky road to go down and we have to stick by due process and the rule of law, as obvious as the eventual results may seem.”
Innocent until proven guilty. It’s the way we dispense justice in this country. It’s the presumption that protects you and me. It’s a trial by peers, whether it is a jury or an ethics committee, that determines guilt. We have a word for inflicting punishment based on obvious but unproven guilt. It is called lynching.
But the Ethics Committee has a problem, too. Santos has not been convicted of any of the charges against him. He remains innocent until proven guilty, at least on those counts. But Santos remains vulnerable on political issues connected with his candidacy, his claims of qualification during his campaign and afterwards, including during his time in office, and other actions and statements for which he is responsible as a member or potential member of the House.
Throughout its history, Congress has only expelled five members of the House, the most recent being the colorful Ohio Congressman James Traficant, in 2002, after he was convicted of racketeering and obstruction of justice. The last Congressman before him was Michael Myers of Pennsylvania, who was convicted of bribery in the 1980 ABSCAM scandal.
Two Missourians in the House and two more in the Senate are key figures in the history of congressional expulsions. House members John B. Clark and John W. Reid were Missourians. The third expulsion was given to Kentucky Congressman Henry Burnett.
John Clark Sr., left his House seat to join the secessionist military forces organized under former governor Sterling Price at the start of the Civil War. He led his division against Franz Sigel’s Union forces at Carthage on July 5, 1861, a minor battle but a decisive one because is was a sound retreat for Sigel and his men. Eight days later the House voted 94-45 to expel him. He resigned his military commission after he was wounded at Wilson’s Creek, Missouri’s Confederate government appointed him a delegate to the Provisional Confederate Congress and then was appointed to the Confederate States Senate. He was not appointed to a second term because of allegations that he was a drunk, a liar, and a womanizer. Clark was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives and at the end of the war fled to Texas to avoid prosecution. When that turned out to be a bad idea, he came back to this country, and found his way back to Missouri in 1870, where he practiced law.
Missouri Congressman John W. Reid was a pro-slavery member of the Missouri House for two years in the 1850s. Reid was an active participant in the Missouri-Kansas Border War during which Missourians tried to get Kansas into the Union as a slave state. On August 30, 1856 he was one of the leaders of a 200-man force of pro-slavery raiders that sacked Osawatomie Kansas, the home of abolitionist John Brown. When his men failed to dislodge forces led by Brown’s son from their rock fortification, they chased the abolitionists back to Osawatomie where they killed Frederick Brown and burned almost all of the buildings in town.
The Kansas Historical Society says this attack led John Brown to begin to see himself as a national leader in, and potentially a martyr to, the abolitionist cause. “ God sees it. I have only a short time to live—only one death to die, and I will die fighting for his cause,” he said. “There will be no more peace in this land until slavery is done for. I will give them somethine else to do that extend slave territory. I will carry this war into Africa.” The KHS says that’s when he started thinking of a raid on the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, to seize the weapons to organize a slave revolt in the South.”
Reid was elected to Congress in 1861. He withdrew on August 3 that year and soon after was expelled on a charge of disloyalty to the Union. He became a volunteer aide to General Price. After the war he was a lawyer, banker, and real-estate owner in Kansas City. He was one of the founders of the Kansas City Chamber of Commerce.
On the Senate side, Senators Waldo P. Johnson and Trusten Polk were expelled on the same day. They were among fourteen senators expelled early in the Civil War because they had gone to the Confederacy.
Trusten Polk served 51 days as governor in 1857, the shortest term of any Missouri governor, before becoming a U. S. Senator. Early in 1861 he called for constitutional amendments protecting slavery and argued they should contain wording that prevented them from being appealed. He, and Johnson, did not return to Washington for the 1862 meeting of the Congress. On January 10, 1862, the Senate voted 35-0 to expel him for disloyalty, a day after receiving a committee report recommending expulsion.. He was part of General Price’s Arkansas command until Confederate President Jefferson Davis appointed him presiding judge of he Trans-Mississippi Department. He was captured in 1863 and imprisoned at Johnon’s Island prison camp in Ohio. When his health turned bad, he was given parole. He returned to Arkansas and was part of Price’s final raid into Missouri in 1863. When the defeated Price fled back to Arkansas, Polk went with him, fleeing to Mexico for a sort time at war’s end before coming back to St. Louis and resuming his law career.
Waldo Johnson was elected to the Senate in 1860. He served about ten months before he was expelled on the same day Polk was kicked out. The Senate voted 36-0 to get rid of him, also a day after getting a committee report recommending expulsion. Same reason as Polk: disloyalty. During the war, he recruited a battalion that fought in the Battle of Pea Ridge, near Bentonville, Arkansas, a Confederate defeat. In 1863 he was appointed to the Confederate Senate. He fled to Canada after the war and eventually got a presidential pardon and returned to his home in Osceola to resume his legal practice. He presided over the Constitutional Convention of 1875.
Clark, Reid, Polk, and Johnson paved the way for the possible expulsion of George Santos. They were kicked out for political disloyalty. So, too, he might be. Disloyalty to common morality, to his constituents, to the law.
Is there guilt enough?
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