Forced Removal From Congress Over Jan. 6 Plotting Proposed

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Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) said this week that members of Congress should observe the first anniversary of the brutal, Trump-inspired attack on the Capitol in January by passing a resolution that she’s introduced calling for the expulsion of certain GOP House members who were involved in efforts to overturn Biden’s presidential election victory. As Bush put it back in January of this year when first introducing that resolution, the “actions of the Republican lawmakers who tried to overturn the valid results of the 2020 elections must not only be condemned in the strongest possible terms, but I believe the members who attempted to disenfranchise voters and incited this violence must be removed from Congress.”

A large number of House Republicans, including House GOP leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), could be affected by Bush’s resolution. This week, Bush commented on Twitter as follows:

‘We should commemorate the 1-year-anniversary of January 6th by passing my H.Res 25 to investigate and expel the members of Congress who helped incite the violent insurrection at our Capitol.’

The resolution is tied to certain provisions of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states that no individual who has engaged in sedition shall be allowed to serve in Congress. While it’s true that members of both major political parties have previously raised concerns about and objections to the presidential election results, never before in modern history has one party been so broadly accepting of outright lies regarding the election results — lies that threaten the very foundation of democracy in this country. And besides the uniquely broad institutional acceptance of these lies within the GOP, the fervency of Republicans’ outright rejection of reality is disturbing.

As explained in an earlier press release from Bush, her resolution would see the “House Committee on Ethics… investigate and issue a report on… whether any and all actions taken by Members of the 117th Congress who sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election violated their Oath of Office to uphold the Constitution or the rules of the House of Representatives, and should face sanction, including exclusion from the House of Representatives.” Bush is a member of prominent House panels including the House Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight Committee. Her resolution has dozens of co-sponsors among her Democratic colleagues, although expelling a member from the House would require the agreement of two-thirds of the chamber… something difficult to achieve with the current group of House Republicans in place.