Speaker Johnson Calls for Expulsion of Rep. Cherfilus-McCormick as House Ethics Crackdown Intensifies

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has declared that Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.) “should be expelled” from Congress, signaling that Republican leadership intends to pursue the most severe disciplinary measure available against the sophomore lawmaker. The statement comes amid an unprecedented wave of ethics-related departures, with Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) both announcing they will leave office voluntarily rather than face expulsion proceedings over allegations of sexual misconduct.

Speaker Johnson’s call for Cherfilus-McCormick’s expulsion represents a significant escalation in what has become one of the most active periods of House ethics enforcement in decades. Expulsion is the most extreme form of discipline available under the Constitution. Article I, Section 5 grants each chamber the power to “punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.” In the entire history of the House of Representatives, only six members have ever been expelled — three during the Civil War for supporting the Confederacy, and most recently Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) in December 2023, who was removed following a damning House Ethics Committee report detailing fraud, campaign finance violations, and misuse of public funds. Before Santos, no member had been expelled since 2002, when Rep. James Traficant (D-Ohio) was removed after being convicted of bribery, racketeering, and tax evasion. The rarity of expulsion underscores the gravity of Johnson’s statement and the extraordinary nature of the current moment on Capitol Hill.

The departures of Swalwell and Gonzales add a bipartisan dimension to the ethics upheaval that makes the current situation particularly unusual. Swalwell, a high-profile Democrat who served on the House Intelligence Committee and briefly ran for president in 2019, and Gonzales, a Republican who represents a sprawling border district in Texas, both chose resignation over the prospect of a public expulsion vote — a path that historically allows members to retain certain benefits and avoid the formal stain of removal. Their decisions suggest that House leadership in both parties has signaled a diminished tolerance for ethical misconduct, and that the threat of expulsion is being wielded with greater credibility than at almost any prior point in modern congressional history. The fact that the two departing members come from opposite sides of the aisle may also provide political cover for Johnson and Republican leadership to pursue action against Cherfilus-McCormick without it being characterized as purely partisan overreach.

The coming days and weeks will be critical in determining whether Johnson’s statement translates into a formal expulsion resolution on the House floor. For such a vote to succeed, it would need support from a significant number of Democrats in addition to the Republican majority, given the two-thirds threshold required by the Constitution. Observers will be watching closely to see whether the House Ethics Committee issues a formal recommendation, whether Cherfilus-McCormick chooses to resign preemptively as Swalwell and Gonzales did, and whether the broader appetite for aggressive ethics enforcement persists or whether it faces pushback from members wary of setting precedents that could be weaponized in future Congresses. The cluster of ethics actions also raises practical questions for House leadership: each vacancy triggers a special election process, and multiple simultaneous vacancies can shift the chamber’s already razor-thin majority margins. In a House where Republicans hold a narrow advantage, the political calculus behind ethics enforcement is never purely procedural — it is also deeply strategic.