Summary Expulsion

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“Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.” — U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 5, Clause 2.

When there is no accountability and no punishment, there can be no rule of law.

Today, video news subjected Americans in their homes to an appalling spectacle. An unruly mob of so-called “protestors” broke through police lines into the Capitol Building. There they stopped what was supposed to have been a purely perfunctory and ministerial procedure: reporting the results of the Electoral College’s lawful vote.

At least one person—apparently a “protestor”—was reportedly removed after being shot. Still photos showed plain-clothed Capital Police aiming their handguns at members of the mob, outward, through broken glass in doors to the House floor.

The United States of America is not supposed to look like this.

That scene recalled another, not long ago, in the chamber of Venezuela’s legislature. There dissident leader Juan Guidó and his supporters fought physically to protect the podium’s “high ground” from backers of dictator Nicolás Maduro. The only salient difference—in our nation overrun with personal weapons—was the display of firearms on our House floor.

We all know who is ultimately responsible: the President of the United States. He summoned the mob with words more fit for biker outlaw than a president: “Be there, will be wild!” The ultimate irony was that he had accused progressive leaders of seeking to bring Venezuelan street violence home.

Yet Trump is on his way out. His mob can slow the process of constitutional government, but it can’t stop it. On January 20, Trump will no longer be president. So however exemplary his summary impeachment and removal might be, it would only hasten the inevitable.

What about his accomplices? In the House, at least, the beseiged floor seemed about half full. The people’s representatives watched Capitol Police protecting them by aiming handguns through broken glass.

Might some of the Members, finally, have thought “this went too far”? What about senators watching, or whose staff watched, the whole debacle on live TV?

As in the case of any mob, you don’t have to discipline all of it. You just have to get the ringleaders.

So why not call an emergency session of both Houses to expel them? In the House of Representatives, there may be over 100 culprits. Let the House leadership determine who most needs sanction.

In the Senate, only two stand out: Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz. From a prosecutorial perspective, Cruz has an advantage. According to reports, many who have known him, from his college classmates to his Senate colleagues, have hated him. It’s not hard to see why.

Why not expel all the congressional ringleaders? Why not do so after a summary “trial” based on their own televised, Tweeted and other public statements, clips of which staff could assemble in mere days?

Then our new Congress could convene purged of the chief inciters/coddlers of mob violence, with lesser accomplices suitably chastened. In this sordid era of democracy under siege, wouldn’t that be a consummation devoutly to be wished?

Trump and his mob would be nothing without invertebrate enablers in Congress. Isn’t it time to make some examples, if only to teach so-called lawmakers that they, too, must obey the law? It’s certainly worth a try.

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