Expulsion
Expulsion is the form of action by which the House of Representatives, after a Member has taken the oath of office, removes that Representative from membership in the body by a vote of two-thirds of the Members present and voting.
11 An expulsion is considered a disciplinary matter and a matter of self-protection of the integrity of the institution and its proceedings, and as such is substantively and procedurally different from an "exclusion," which denies a Member-elect his or her seat by a simple
majority vote of the body, prior to the Member-elect being seated (or after being seated "without prejudice" pending investigation and resolution of the matter), because of failure of the Member-elect to meet the constitutional qualifications for office (i.e., age, citizenship and inhabitancy in the state from which elected), or because of a failure to have been "duly elected"; an "exclusion" is now understood
not to be a disciplinary procedure.
12 A Member is "expelled" by a two-thirds vote, however, precisely for issues of misconduct, and expulsion is generally taken against a Member after the Member has been sworn into office.
Members of the United States Congress are not removed by way of an "impeachment" procedure in the legislature, as are executive and judicial officers, but are subject to the more simplified and expedited legislative process of expulsion.
13 A removal through an impeachment, it should be noted, requires the action of both houses of Congress—impeachment in the House and trial and conviction in the Senate. An expulsion, however, is accomplished merely by the House or Senate acting alone concerning one of its own Members, without the consent or action of the other body, and without the constitutional requirement of trial and conviction.
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