(The Center Square) – An effort to oust Florida Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick from Congress is one of several formal reprimands that House lawmakers have pursued against each other in recent days.
Hours after prosecutors announced on Nov. 19 that Cherfilus-McCormick had been indicted on charges of stealing $5 million federal disaster aid and sending some of it to her election campaign, Rep. Greg Steube, R-Florida, posted on X he would try to censure her if she didn’t resign. He then announced he would “move straight to expulsion,” and filed legislation that is still pending.
Cherfilus-McCormick, who posted bond on Tuesday, has denied wrongdoing and said she has no plans to vacate her seat. She stepped down from her position as the top Democrat on a Senate Foreign Affairs subcommittee, as required by Democratic caucus rules.
House lawmakers filed six other measures last week seeking to scold each other for various reasons. Allegations ranged from election subversion and false claims of military awards to profiting off government contracts and communicating with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during congressional hearings years ago.
Attempts at formal rebukes have been rare until recent years. Allegations of misconduct have typically been sent to the House Ethics Committee to investigate, as they were last year in the case of Cherfilus-McCormick. The committee has not released a report on the case, and Steube has indicated he won’t push for an expulsion vote in the meantime.
It takes a two-thirds vote of the House to oust a member. Only six members have been expelled.
The most recent expulsion came in 2023, after the Ethics Committee determined that Rep. George Santos, R-New York, misused campaign funds for personal use, engaged in fraud and filed false reports with the Federal Elections Commission.
Santos served three months of a seven-year prison sentence for wire fraud and identity theft until President Donald Trump commuted his sentence in October.
Cherfilus-McCormick isn’t the only Floridian to face reprimand attempts. In September, Rep. Cory Mills, R-Florida, was the subject of a censure resolution brought by Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-New York, who alleged legal and ethical misconduct. Mills denied wrongdoing, and Clarke did not push for a vote.
More recently, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-South Carolina, sought to censure Mills and remove him from his committee assignments, alleging he violated campaign finance laws, misused his House position and engaged in sexual misconduct and dating violence. Mills has said the accusations are false.
The House voted on Nov. 19 to send Mace’s censure attempt to the Ethics Committee, which created an investigative subcommittee to review the allegations.
