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“Unprecedented.”
The word appears to date back to the 17th century and the waning years for England’s Charles I. He and his supporters argued against an “unprecedented” overthrow and execution of the king.
They lost. Charles was executed. But out of his death, rose a political juggernaut in the English-speaking world.
Today, nearly 400 years later, "unprecedented" reflects a host of occurrences in a single year: an indicted former president (with 91 felony counts) and an ousted speaker of the House; the oldest president in U.S. history preparing to run (again) against a former president who would become the second-oldest if elected to a second term.
We sit on the edge of yet more oddities this very week.
We thought it might be fun to look at what’s directly ahead in both chambers, in terms of what has precedent and what is distinctly “un-.”
George Santos
The congressman from Long Island faces potential expulsion as soon as tomorrow. This, after the House Ethics Committee published a 56-page investigation that contained some remarkable statements, including, “Representative Santos sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit” and, “he blatantly stole from his campaign.”
The expulsion of a member of Congress has precedent. But not exceedingly so. Only five times in history has the House expelled a member from office, and three of those were for fighting for the Confederacy.
There is no recent precedent, however. The last person to be expelled from the House was James Traficant, who was cast out of Congress in 2002 after bribery, tax and other charges.
The Senate versus Tommy Tuberville
On the Senate side this week, the fight over military promotions may be drawing closer to a pivot point, as Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is preparing to hold a vote to change the rules so that military nominees can more easily be approved in large blocs of names.
Currently, any single senator can hold up those kinds of bloc nominations, a tactic that dramatically bogs down the nomination process but does not outright block the nominees.
Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s use of this tactic as part of a protest is unprecedented. The Republican senator, known as “coach” for his headline-making years in college football, wants the Pentagon to reverse its policy of paying for travel costs for any service members in need of an abortion or reproductive care that is not available where they are stationed.
Tuberville has not budged, sparking this also unprecedented countermove by Schumer and some Republicans to consider a rules change to move the entire chamber (and much of the military) around a single senator.
Timing on this is not yet clear. Stay tuned.
The PBS NewsHour’s Dan Cooney and Jenna Cohen contributed to this week’s newsletter.
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