A vote was held in congress on Dec. 1 to expel the former New York Republican representative George Santos from Congress.

Santos is the sixth member of House representatives to ever be expelled from congress. Santos was accused by prosecutors of multiple counts of financial misdeeds, and reimbursing himself for loans from his congressional campaign. This raised even more concerns towards Santos.

Santos caused major controversy even before being sworn into Congress.

“The North Shore Leader, a newspaper in Santos’ Long Island district, originally raised questions about claims that Santos made in campaign filings in which he estimated his net worth at roughly $11 million,” said NPR.

Not only did he seem to be controversial for his money from the newspaper, but he was recognized for his shady behavior from the very beginning of his political career to earn more money. 

“The New York Republican spent 11 months in the House, but was plagued by scandal from the very beginning,” describes NBC. “Including accusations that he scammed $3,000 from a GoFundMe campaign for a disabled veteran’s dying service dog and immigration documents showing his mother was not in New York on 9/11 as he had claimed.”

Soon after he reached Congress, this behavior did not end. However, this time the controversy was put into federal question and charges. 

“His campaign also attracted the attention of federal prosecutors,” said CBS. “On May 10, the Justice Department announced 13 federal charges against him, including wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and making false statements to Congress.” 

All the controversy, allegations, and charges that built over time raised concerns about Santos. So, federal indictments were issued at the beginning of this year along with a scathing report issued by the House Ethics Committee.

“The explosive allegations were detailed in a pair of federal indictments handed down earlier this year, and the House Ethics Committee issued its own scathing report,” says CBS.

The overall vote to expel Santos was a bipartisan vote, meaning that Democrats along with dozens of Santos’ colleagues all agreed on the expulsion of Santos.

“Santos represented a district that President Biden won by 10 percentage points,” states NPR. “The decision to expel him shrinks Republicans’ already razor-thin majority in the House.”

With Santos no longer in the House, there is a very slim majority of Republicans. While both parties do not agree upon many things, they both knew it was time for Santos to leave Congress.