Throw the bums out: How does a member of Congress get removed?
Q. How does a Member of Congress get removed?
A. Despite regular calls to replace them, members of the United States Congress cannot be recalled, nor can they be impeached. The terms of service in Congress are set by the U.S. Constitution, as are the means of removing a member of either the Senate or the House of Representatives. Under Article I, Section 5, Clause 2: “Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two-thirds, expel a Member.”
Each House in Congress can set its own rules of conduct, discipline members as it sees fit, and both expel or exclude a member. There is an important difference between the two actions. Exclusion is what happens when someone is prevented from being seated in the Congress after an election. Expulsion is the removal of a sitting member of either House.
Exclusions are not mentioned in the Constitution, so there is no two-thirds requirement, meaning that a Congressperson-elect can be excluded by a majority vote. However, there are limited grounds on which to do this. In 1966, Congressman Adam Powell was reelected to the U.S. House of Representatives despite being embroiled in controversy and held in criminal contempt in the state of New York. Despite winning his election, the House voted overwhelmingly to exclude him from the chamber.
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In Powell v. McCormack (1969), the U.S. Supreme Court held that a person could only be excluded if they failed to meet the constitutional qualifications for office, such as age, citizenship, and residence in the state. Once a member was duly elected, the proper path for removal for malfeasance would be expulsion.
Yet, expulsion is a rare event. While there are no specific grounds, it usually involves either disloyalty to the U.S., or abuse of office. In U.S. history, only five members of the House have been expelled, with only two of those occurring in the last 150 years. In 1980, Michael Myers (D-PA) was expelled after being convicted of bribery. In 2002, Jim Traficant (D-OH) was expelled following convictions on 10 counts, including bribery. The Senate has expelled 15 members, but most of those were for supporting the Confederacy during the Civil War era. No member of the Senate has been expelled since 1862.
Part of the reason there are so few expulsions is that members will either resign or choose not to run for re-election when there is mounting evidence of malfeasance. Additionally, since the two-thirds vote requirement is so high for expulsion, the legislative chambers will often use other types of disciplinary actions instead, such as reprimands, censures, and/or removals from committees.
In the cases of most ethically challenged members of Congress, absent a very rare overwhelming bipartisan outcry, voters are usually left with no choice but to wait out the term of their member and try to pick someone better in the next election.
Kevin Wagner is a noted constitutional scholar and political science professor at Florida Atlantic University. The answers provided do not necessarily represent the views of the university. If you have a question about how American government and politics work, email him at kwagne15@fau.edu or reach him on Twitter @kevinwagnerphd. You can read past columns here.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: The Civics Project: How does a member of Congress get removed?
