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Comment by nradov | Hacker News Reader

Political parties have no legal authority to expel a member from Congress. Parties are voluntary private organizations with no formal role in any branch of government. The most the parties can really do to punish a politician is to withdraw financial and organizational support, which might make reelection difficult.

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Both the House and the Senate make their own rules, and that includes the ability to unseat a member. If they really wanted to, they could (but they won’t).

Huh, I’m surprised one party who controlled the House or Senate never decided to just kick out all their opponents, if they are legally allowed to.

What would be the upside? They are already fairly powerless in the opposition and this would be a huge scandal

It’s an escalating game of chicken. You can see it happening in the new Congress with public statements from the Republican incoming majority leader to remove certain Democrats from committee assignments (e.g. removing Schiff from the intelligence committee).

Not that long ago that was unheard of and either party could seat whoever they’d like in a committee. But similar to how the Democrats killed the executive appointment filibuster, they killed that as well by refusing to seat Republicans on the Jan 6th and removing some from other committees .

Now it’s going to come full circle. I wouldn’t be surprised if it eventually gets to unseating or refusing to seat a controversial figure.

Removing each other from committees is a far cry from kicking each other out of Congress. That has only happened twice since the 19th century, and both times it came after a criminal conviction. Merely being an absolute idiot isn't enough to get a 2/3rds vote to kick out a congressmen because that would be mutually assured destruction; they all know they're all absolute idiots so they don't expel each other out for that.

Also,

> Both the House and the Senate make their own rules,

The rules for expelling congressmen are set in the US Constitution, they don't just make it up as they go. Unless you're talking about their ability to amend the US Constitution, but that's even less likely than kicking these guys out the normal way.

The best way to get them kicked out would be to have them convicted for bribery/corruption, then you might get a 2/3rds vote to expel them.

Congress can't refuse to seat a controversial figure. They can only unseat after the fact, and that requires a 2/3 vote.

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/395/486/

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