Withaccusationsswirling around Alabama Republican senatorial campaigner Roy Moore , there ’s been increasing guess that if Moore wins election in December , other legislators might prove to keep him out of the Senate .
But how would they do that ? They ca n’t banish Moore from taking office . According to a1969 U.S. Supreme Court decision , Congress only can refuse a place to someone if that person does n’t meet theconstitutional requirementsof being a U.S. citizen , does n’t lodge in in the State Department he or she has been elected to represent , and in the display case of a U.S. senator , is n’t at least 30 years old .
That ’s why Sen. Cory Gardner , a Republican from Colorado who heads the National Republican Senatorial Committee , has preach an irregular solution . In astatementissued on Nov. 13 , Gardner said that if Moore wins , " the Senate should vote to rout him . "
In a scenario sketched out in this Politico clause , Moore first would have to be swear into the Senate , so that the eubstance could start the process of kicking him out . clause I , part 5of the U.S. Constitution gives the Senate the power to oust a member , cater that a two - thirds majority approve the resolution . As this 2012 Congressional Research Service report explains , expelling a senator is simpler than removing a U.S. president from office , which requires the House of Representatives to pass article of impeachment and the Senate to nurse a run and vote for condemnation .
But that does n’t mean it would be easygoing . Only 15 senator have been kick out in the land ’s history , and the last one was in 1862 , according to a list on theU.S. Senate website . And none have been exhaust for actions that come before they became senators . As the CRS news report notes , the Constitution does n’t specify the primer for expulsion , but most instances " have loosely concerned case of perceive disloyalty to the United States , or the strong belief of a criminal statutory offence which involve abuse of one ’s official position . "
The History of Senate Expulsions
The first senator to be expelled wasWilliam Blountof Tennessee in 1787 . His offense : Trying to set off a rebellion in then - Spanish - control Florida and Louisiana that would allow the British to prehend those colonies , which in turning would have provide him to make money in Edwin Herbert Land supposition . Unfortunately for Blount , an incriminating alphabetic character that he wrote fell into the hands of a political opposer , President John Adams . The Senate expel him by a 25 - 1 vote . ( Strangely , afterward , the Senate essay to submit him an impeachment test as well , but finally decided that he was n’t an impeachable policeman underArticle II , Section 4of the U.S. Constitution . )
The other 14 expulsions occurred in the early year of the Civil War . HistorianFergus M. Bordewich , author of " The First Congress " and presently at workplace on a book about Congress during the Civil War , explains in an e-mail that they were " Senators from the South and border states who had desert to the Confederacy , and were essentially doom as treasonist by their former Senate colleagues . " The last senator to be kicked out of the consistency , DemocratJesse D. Brightof Indiana , was vote out on Feb. 5 , 1862 . Bright " was a Northerner , but he had expressed what were hold to be faithlessly pro - Confederate views , and had recognized the legitimacy of the Confederacy in composition , " Bordewich says .
In all these cases , there was n’t much difficulty acquire the needed two - thirds . " With the Southerners gone , Republicans held huge majorities , " Bordewich explains .
Failed Expulsion Attempts
According to the Senate website , there have been nine other failed attempt to drum out senators . In 1907 , for example , Sen. Reed Smoot , a Republican from Utah and a leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter - day Saints , was accused of having taken a religious swearword that made him ineligible to serve in the Senate , and of being part of a Christian church that had once sanction polygamy . But Smoot pull through a base ballot by 27 yeas to 43 nay . In 1919,Sen . Robert M. La Follette , a Republican from Wisconsin , was criminate of disloyalty and sedition for giving a 1917 speech play off U.S. entry into World War I. But in the ending , the Senate voted 50 to 21 to dismiss the charge , and eventually paid La Follette $ 5,000 to cover his legal expenses .
Additionally , five other senators have avoided an expulsion vote by giving up their function . The most late wasSen . Robert Packwood , an Oregon Republican , whoresigned in a language on the Senate floorin 1995 , after theSenate Select Committee on Ethicsissued a lengthyreportrecommending his exclusion , according to theU.S. Senate website .
The Process Today
Today , a senator ’s possible downfall probably would start with an ethic complaint to the committee , which would inquire and make a testimonial about whether the full chamber should vote on ejection . That could lead to an forcing out resolution that would be put up for a voting by the full chamber . The accused most likely would testify in the transactions .
" A Senator could take the Fifth , if he reckon that his testimonial might be used against him in a motor inn of practice of law , " David F. Forte , a professor at the Cleveland - Marshall College of Law and writer of anessayon the forcing out article in the Heritage Guide to the Constitution , says . " Outside of that , if he simply deny to testify , he might be held in contempt as well . " But even if the senator was n’t punished , remain tacit might well backfire . " It probably would just increase his chances of losing , " Forte said .
