Welcome to the Deep Dive. Yeah. We're incredibly
glad you could join us today. Yeah, thanks for
being here. If you are the kind of person who,
you know, wants a shortcut to being well -informed,
you're definitely in the right place. Today,
we are setting out on a very specific mission.
We are. We're going to explore the dramatic,
the shocking, and... honestly, surprisingly wild
history of how the United States Senate disciplines
its own members. It's a history that completely
changes how you view the modern legislative branch.
I mean, most people really don't fully grasp
the mechanics of congressional discipline until
they see the actual historical record just, you
know, laid out in front of them. Right. And to
do that, we are pulling our insights from a single,
highly detailed source for today's deep dive.
We're examining a Wikipedia article titled List
of United States Senators Expelled or Censured.
Which is essentially the ultimate permanent record
for the upper chamber of Congress. It tracks
every time the Senate has had to step in and
police the behavior of its own. But before we
delve into those records, I need to make a vital
point regarding the nature of this source material.
Good idea. This historical document contains
some heavily politically charged content. I mean,
we are going to be discussing everything from
Confederate rebellions to modern political scandals
that cross both sides of the aisle. Oh, yeah.
Both sides. Because of that, I want to be explicitly
clear with you, the listener. We are not taking
any sides today. Absolutely not. We are not endorsing
the viewpoints of any politicians mentioned,
nor are we endorsing any political stance found
in the source material. Our job here. is to impartially
report the facts exactly as they appear in the
provided text, just exploring the history of
Senate discipline without any modern political
bias. That is a very helpful boundary to set.
We're really just here to understand the history
and the sheer drama of how this all works. Okay,
let's unpack this. Let's do it. We need to start
with the absolute ultimate punishment a senator
can face. What does it actually take to get formally
expelled from the United States Senate? Well,
it requires clearing a very high bar, which is
entirely by constitutional design. The U .S.
Constitution gives the Senate the power to expel
any of its members, but it mandates a two -thirds
majority vote to make it happen. Wow, two -thirds.
Yeah. It's not a tool that a simple, razor -thin
majority can use to just, you know, push out
a political rival. Furthermore, there's a crucial
constitutional distinction regarding how the
Senate handles its own compared to other branches
of the federal government. Right, because we
often hear the word impeachment used when we
talk about removing a president or a federal
judge. Exactly. The Senate does have power over
impeachment trials and convictions for executive
and judicial federal officials. But when it comes
to their own colleagues in the chamber. The Senate
actually ruled way back in 1798 that senators
cannot be impeached. They can only be expelled.
He can only be expelled. That 1798 ruling sets
the stage perfectly for the very first time the
Senate ever used this ultimate boot. It really
does. Because the debate over whether a senator
could be impeached happened during the trial
of a man who had already been kicked out of the
chamber. Let's talk about the trailblazer of
treason, William Blount. Right. William Blount
of Tennessee. He holds the distinct historical
honor of being the very first senator expelled,
which happened in 1797. He was a Democratic Republican,
right? He was. And his infraction was not some
minor ethical slip up or a misunderstanding over
campaign funds. He was expelled for treason.
Actual treason. Actual treason. Specifically,
he was involved in a massive conspiracy to incite
the Creek and Cherokee Indians to assist Great
Britain in launching an invasion into Spanish
Florida. It sounds like the plot of an 18th century
action movie. It really does. A sitting United
States senator trying to orchestrate an international
invasion with foreign powers and Native American
tribes just a few years after the country was
founded. It highlights just how fragile and volatile
the early republic was. But strategically for
the Senate as an institution, Blount's case established
the absolute precedent. Also. By dealing with
his incredible overreach, the Senate firmly established
that expulsion, not impeachment, was the proper
constitutional mechanism for removing a rogue
member. So Blount kicks things off in 1797 with
a. literal treasonous conspiracy. But if we look
at the broader timeline from the founding fathers
all the way to today, expulsion is incredibly
rare. Extremely rare. I was looking at the statistics
in our source and expulsion has only ever happened
15 times in the entire history of the United
States. Yeah. And what is truly staggering is
that 14 of those 15 expulsions happened right
around the Civil War. That represents a massive
concentration of disciplinary action. After Blount
was removed in 1797, the Senate did not expel
a single person for over six decades. Wow. Then,
in 1861, the floodgates opened. This wasn't about
individual corruption anymore. This was about
the secession of the southern states and the
fracturing of the nation itself. Let's look at
the atmosphere of the chamber during that time.
You have a massive portion of the country actively
declaring a rebellion, and the Senate has to
formally sever ties with the members representing
those states. Right. In 1861, the Senate expelled
a large block of Southern Democrats for supporting
the Confederate rebellion. You have James M.
Mason and Robert M .T. Hunter from Virginia,
Thomas Lanier Clingman and Thomas Bragg from
North Carolina, James Chestnut Jr. from South
Carolina. The list from 1861 is extensive. It
really paints a picture of the empty desks that
must have been sitting in the chamber. You also
had Alfred O .P. Nicholson of Tennessee, Charles
B. Mitchell of Arkansas, John Hemphill of Texas,
Louis Widfall of Texas, and John C. Breckenridge
of Kentucky. All of them at once. Every single
one of them expelled for the exact same reason,
throwing their support behind the Confederacy.
And the explosions didn't stop in 1861. The momentum
carried over into the next year as the war escalated.
That's right. In 1862, the Senate formally expelled
Tristan Polk and Waldo P. Johnson, both representing
Missouri, along with Jesse D. Bright of Indiana.
All three were removed for supporting the rebellion.
So that specific condensed period really tested
the mechanisms of the Senate like nothing before
or since. They were effectively purging a third
of their own body. Looking at that intense period
of history, there's a lot of black and white.
But this source also notes a strange gray area
with one of those men. There is a remarkable
historical footnote here regarding a man named
William K. Sebastian. He was a Democrat from
Arkansas and he was expelled right alongside
that first group in 1861 for supporting the rebellion.
Right. However, his expulsion was actually posthumously
reversed in 1877. Wait, posthumously. The Senate
went back into the historical record 16 years
later after the man had already died just to
undo his expulsion. They did. It highlights how
incredibly complex the post -war reconciliation
period was in Washington. The Senate felt compelled
to officially reverse the ultimate punishment
for a former colleague who was no longer even
alive to see his name cleared. That is a fascinating
piece of institutional history. But as we move
past the Civil War and Reconstruction, we hit
a massive drought. According to the source, no
one has been officially expelled from the United
States Senate since 1862. Not a single person.
So what does this all mean? Did politicians just
suddenly start behaving perfectly once the Civil
War ended? Yeah, did they? Far from it. What
we see instead is a major tactical shift in how
Senate discipline actually plays out in the real
world. We enter the era of the failed expulsions
or what you might call the you -can't -fire -me
-I -quit club. I love that. The Senate has initiated
many expulsion proceedings over the decades,
but they rarely result in an actual formal expulsion.
And that comes back to that incredibly high constitutional
bar you mentioned earlier. Getting two thirds
of the Senate to agree on anything is difficult,
let alone destroying a colleague's career. Precisely.
In many of these historical case studies, the
expulsion effort simply fails to secure that
necessary two thirds vote on the floor. Or what
else happens? In other instances, the proceedings
just fade away because the senator in question
dies or their term naturally expires before a
final vote can happen. But most commonly in the
modern era, the senator sees the writing on the
wall and chooses to resign while the proceedings
are still taking place. The source outlines several
major case studies of these failed expulsions,
and they span all kinds of behavior. Let's look
at how these tests of the system evolved. Going
way back to 1808, we have an incident that feels
like a sequel to the William Blount conspiracy.
John Smith. Yes, John Smith, a Democratic Republican
from Ohio. Smith was accused of assisting Aaron
Burr's Western Expedition, which was a highly
controversial and suspected treasonous plot at
the time. The Senate initiated proceedings to
expel Smith, but when it came time for the floor
vote, it failed to reach the two -thirds threshold.
So he survived the formal vote. He survived the
vote. However, the political pressure and the
public scrutiny were clearly too much to bear
because he ended up resigning just two weeks
later. So even a failed expulsion can act as
a forced resignation. Exactly. Fast forward to
1893 and we see a totally different type of defense.
William N. Roach, a Democrat from North Dakota,
was charged with embezzlement. In Roach's case,
he was not expelled, but the reasoning is quite
unique. The Senate determined that his charges
of embezzlement were simply too far in the past
to warrant his removal from the chamber at that
specific time. They literally used a statute
of limitations defense. It was essentially the
Senate applying a statute of limitations defense
to their own disciplinary proceedings. That is
incredible. Then in 1907, we get a case that
tests the boundaries of religion and government.
Reed Smoot, a Republican from Utah. This was
a highly publicized and deeply controversial
ordeal. A Senate committee asserted that Smoot,
because of his Mormon faith, belonged to a religion
that was inherently incompatible with United
States law. They actively tried to expel him
based entirely on his religious affiliation.
But when the measure went to the full Senate,
they famously voted 43 to 27 that his religion
was not relevant to his standing as a senator,
and he kept his seat. It is a relief to see the
chamber reject a religious test like that. Now,
moving into the 20th century, we had a major
moment for the First Amendment in 1919 with Robert
M. La Follette, a Republican from Wisconsin.
He was formally charged with disloyalty. What's
fascinating here is the specific context of that
disloyalty charge. La Follette had given a passionate
speech opposing the United States entry into
World War I. So it was about his speech? Yes.
The attempt to expel him was essentially an attempt
by the government to police his political speech
and punish him for dissenting against a major
war effort. That's a huge deal. Fortunately,
the full Senate recognized the dangerous precedent
that would set. By a vote of 50 to 21, they found
that expulsion was not warranted, effectively
protecting a senator's right to voice opposition
to a war. That feels like a defining moment for
free speech protections within the government
itself. Let's look at one more of these failed
votes. In 1942, we have William Langer, a Republican
from North Dakota. Langer was charged with corruption
and moral turpitude stemming from his previous
time serving as the governor of North Dakota.
What exactly is moral turpitude? For context,
moral turpitude is a legal concept referring
to conduct that is considered deeply contrary
to community standards of justice, honesty or
good morals. Got it. Despite carrying that heavy
baggage into the chamber, Langer survived the
vote. The Senate voted against his expulsion
52 to 30. So those are the individuals who actually
faced the vote and survived. But if we bring
the timeline closer to the present day, we see
a totally different pattern emerge. Resignations.
Right. Modern senators do not even let the proceedings
get to a final floor vote. They opt to resign
rather than face the music of a very public,
very humiliating expulsion trial. We see a steady
string of these high profile resignations in
recent history. In 1982, Harrison A. Williams,
a Democrat from New Jersey, was convicted of
bribery and conspiracy in the infamous Abscam
scandal. Oh, Abscam. For those unfamiliar, Abscam
was a massive FBI sting operation where agents
posed as wealthy Arab sheikhs to offer bribes
to public officials. Facing almost certain expulsion
after his conviction, Williams resigned before
the full Senate could cast their votes. We saw
the exact same maneuver in 1995 with Bob Packwood,
a Republican. from Oregon, he was facing severe
charges of sexual misconduct and abuse of power.
Just like Williams, Pack would resign before
the Senate could finalize his removal. And the
pattern continued in 2011 with John Ensign, a
Republican from Nevada. He was charged with serious
financial improprieties that stemmed from an
extramarital affair. Once again, rather than
letting his colleagues formally throw him out,
he chose to resign before the final vote. It
is the ultimate face -saving maneuver. You leave
on your own terms, you control the narrative
of your exit, and you avoid the historic stain
of being the first person expelled since the
Civil War. But expulsion, or the threat of it
driving a resignation, isn't the only tool that
Santa has. Here's where it gets really interesting.
What happens when a senator's conduct is terrible,
but maybe not quite treasonous or criminal enough
to warrant expulsion? That brings us to the lesser
but still highly significant punishment censure.
A censure is, at its core, a formal statement
of disapproval issued by the Senate against one
of its own. But just to be clear, it has no actual
teeth, right? There's no formal penalty attached
to a censure. Correct. It carries no formal disciplinary
penalty. A censured senator does not lose their
seat, they do not lose their voting rights on
the floor, and they aren't forced to pay a fine.
It is strictly a public dressing down by your
peers. It is considered the weakest form of discipline
the Senate issues. And it's worth noting that
this differs from the House of Representatives.
How so? The House actually has an intermediary
step called a reprimand, which sits below a censure.
The Senate does not have that. They only have
expulsion or censure. But even without the formal
teeth or loss of voting power. A censure seems
to carry a heavy, heavy curse. It does. The source
notes that only nine senators have been formally
censured in the entire history of the United
States. Out of those nine individuals, do you
know how many were ever reelected by their home
state voters? Just one. One. Only one of the
nine censured senators has ever won re -election.
It's incredible. If we connect this to the bigger
picture, it tells us something profound about
the relationship between the Senate and the American
electorate. The Senate might only be issuing
what amounts to a slap on the wrist, but the
voters treat a censure as a permanent scarlet
letter. Don't forget it. Even without formal
penalties, being censured effectively destroys
a political career in the eyes of the public.
It is a blinding, flashing signal to the voters
that this representative has completely lost
the trust and respect of their peers. So let's
open up the censure hall of shame and look at
some of these nine individuals. We can categorize
them by their infractions. The earliest censures
seem to fall into the category of leaking state
secrets. The very first censure in Senate history
falls exactly into this category. In 1811, Timothy
Pickering, a Federalist from Massachusetts, was
censured for reading confidential documents aloud
in an open Senate session before an injunction
of secrecy had been removed. An injunction of
secrecy? Yeah, an injunction of secrecy is a
strict, formal rule requiring absolute confidentiality
on sensitive... executive session matters like
treaties or nominations. Violating it was a massive
breach of protocol. And it happened again just
a few decades later in 1844 with Benjamin Tappan,
a Democrat from Ohio. He literally released a
copy of President John Tyler's highly sensitive
message regarding the treaty of annexation between
the United States and the Republic of Texas directly
to the New York Evening Post. Leaking a presidential
treaty message directly to the press during a
sensitive geopolitical moment is a clear -cut
case for a formal statement of disapproval. Okay,
we have to talk about my favorite category from
this list because it sounds completely unhinged
by today's standards, brawling in the chamber,
literally fighting on the Senate floor. In 1902,
two Democrats from South Carolina, Benjamin Tillman
and John L. McLaurin, were both censured because
they got into a physical fistfight with each
other during a live Senate session. Imagine tuning
into modern C -SPAN coverage and seeing two sitting
United States senators throwing haymakers at
each other over a legislative disagreement. It
is a shocking breach of decorum that the Senate
simply could not ignore. And what makes this
story even wilder is that Benjamin Tillman, one
of the men throwing punches on the Senate floor,
is that one single exception we mentioned earlier.
That's right. He is the only censured senator
in U .S. history to ever be reelected. South
Carolina voters apparently did not mind a little
brawling from their representative. It certainly
stands as a historical anomaly. But as we move
further into the 20th century, the reasons for
censure shift away from physical fights and start
focusing heavily on deep ethical and financial
breaches. Let's walk through those modern staffing
and financial scandals. How did politicians get
themselves censured in the 1900s? In 1929, Hiram
Bingham III, a Republican from Connecticut, was
censured for a blatant textbook conflict of interest.
He employed a man named Charles Anson as a Senate
staff member, while Anson was simultaneously
receiving a salary from the Manufacturers Association
of Connecticut. Wow. You cannot have a corporate
lobbyist essentially sitting on your official
Senate payroll. That is a massive ethical violation.
Exactly. Then in 1967, Thomas J. Dodd, a Democrat
from Connecticut, was censured for using his
office to convert campaign funds to his personal
benefit and for general conduct on becoming a
senator. Dipping into the campaign coffers for
personal use is a classic career -ending political
scandal. And the financial scandals continued.
In 1990, David Durenberger, a Republican from
Minnesota, faced censure for unethical conduct
relating to the improper reimbursement of Senate
expenses and the acceptance of outside payments
and gifts. There is also the notable 1979 case
of Herman Talmadge, a Democrat from Georgia.
The source details that he was involved in improper
financial conduct, which included accepting reimbursements
for official expenses he didn't actually incur
and improperly reporting his campaign receipts.
But the source notes a semantic technicality
with Talmadge's discipline. Yes, there is a very
specific linguistic distinction on his record.
The Senate formally denounced Talmadge rather
than officially using the word censure, though
historians. and the Senate itself categorize
it in the exact same historical grouping of formal
disapproval. It functioned exactly like a censure.
That brings us to the final and perhaps most
historically famous censure on the entire list,
the McCarthy era. If we connect this to the bigger
picture, the discipline of Joseph McCarthy in
1954 was a watershed moment in American politics.
McCarthy, a Republican from Wisconsin, had been
driving the intense, sweeping anti -communist
investigations of the era that ruined countless
lives and careers. But looking at the source,
his censure wasn't directly about his broad political
crusade, was it? It was about his specific behavior
toward the Senate itself. That is a crucial distinction.
He was not censured for his political ideology.
He was censured for his complete refusal to cooperate
with and his relentless verbal abuse of the members
of the subcommittee on privileges and elections
during a 1952 investigation into his own conduct.
Furthermore, he abused the select committee to
study censure. He actively attacked the very
institutional mechanisms the Senate was using
to hold him accountable. The Senate finally drew
a line, issuing a formal censure that broke his
aura of invincibility and effectively ended his
reign of influence. It is an absolutely incredible
journey through the history of accountability
in Washington. Think about what we have covered
today. We started with the literal expulsion
of treasonous conspirators in the 18th century,
with William Blount trying to hand Spanish Florida
over to the British. We explored the massive
unprecedented exodus of Confederates during the
19th century Civil War. A completely different
era. And then we watch the evolution of discipline
into the modern era, where politicians either
face the career -ending slap on the wrist of
a censure, or they simply choose to resign rather
than face a final humiliating expulsion vote.
It really highlights how the culture and the
strategy of the Senate have shifted over two
centuries. The evolution is truly stark. And
as we review this history, this raises an important
question, one that I want to leave you, the listener,
to mull over on your own. We've seen that modern
senators almost always resign before an expulsion
vote occurs just to save face and control their
exit. If that is the case, does the actual mechanism
of an expulsion vote even matter anymore? Or
is the mere threat of severe public embarrassment
the true, ultimate enforcing power of the United
States Senate? Is it the rule itself or just
the fear of the spotlight that keeps them in
line? Such a brilliant thought to end on. Thank
you so much for joining us for this deep dive.
We hope this shortcut has left you feeling well
-informed and maybe a little surprised by the
wild history of our legislative branch. Keep
exploring, keep questioning, and we will catch
you next time as we dive into another fascinating
topic.