You cannot impeach a member of Congress. The Constitution reserves impeachment for the President, Vice President, and “civil Officers of the United States,” and the Senate settled more than two centuries ago that elected legislators are not civil officers in that sense. Senators and representatives are instead disciplined by their own chamber, most severely through expulsion by a two-thirds vote. Criminal prosecution and, in narrow circumstances, disqualification under the 14th Amendment are the other real avenues for pushing a sitting member out.
Why Impeachment Does Not Reach Congress
Article II, Section 4 says “the President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”1Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution Article II Section 4 – Impeachment Members of Congress are elected, not commissioned by the President, and the Incompatibility Clause bars anyone holding a federal office from serving in Congress at the same time. Read together, those provisions place legislators outside the category of “officers” the impeachment power was designed to reach.2Constitution Annotated. ArtII.S4.2 Offices Eligible for Impeachment
The question came up once, and only once. In 1797 the House impeached Senator William Blount of Tennessee over a scheme to help British forces seize Spanish territory along the lower Mississippi.3U.S. Senate. Impeachment Trial of Senator William Blount, 1799 Two years later the Senate dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction, concluding a senator is not a civil officer subject to impeachment. The House has never voted to impeach a member of Congress since.2Constitution Annotated. ArtII.S4.2 Offices Eligible for Impeachment
There is a structural reason for that line. If one chamber could impeach members of the other, it would hand each house a veto over the other’s composition. Keeping discipline internal preserves the independence of the two chambers.
Expulsion: The Actual Removal Mechanism
The Constitution gives each chamber its own removal tool. Article I, Section 5 provides that “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.”4Constitution Annotated. Article I Section 5 – Proceedings The two-thirds threshold is deliberately high, set to keep a slim partisan majority from purging its opponents.
Expulsion is entirely internal. The other chamber has no role. The expelled member has no right of judicial review, and courts have consistently declined to second-guess these decisions.5Legal Information Institute. Judicial Interpretations of Expulsion Clause Before a floor vote, the matter typically runs through the chamber’s ethics committee, which investigates and issues a report and recommendation. The final vote on the floor still needs two-thirds.
How Rare Expulsion Is
Only 21 members of Congress have ever been expelled: 15 senators and 6 representatives. Seventeen of those removals came during the Civil War, for supporting the Confederacy.6U.S. Senate. About Expulsion No senator has been expelled since. Several came close and resigned first.
On the House side, three members have been expelled since the Civil War:
- Michael Myers, in 1980, after a bribery conviction in the Abscam scandal.
- James Traficant, in 2002, after convictions for bribery, racketeering, and filing false tax returns.
- George Santos, in 2023, by a 311–114 vote following a federal indictment on 23 counts including wire fraud, money laundering, and stealing public funds. Santos was the first member expelled without a criminal conviction or an act of rebellion.7Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives. Vote Details – Expulsion of Representative George Santos
Censure and Reprimand
When conduct calls for formal condemnation short of removal, each chamber can turn to censure or reprimand. Both rest on the same Article I, Section 5 authority as expulsion, but they need only a simple majority.8U.S. Senate. About Censure
Censure is the harsher of the two. In the House, a censured member traditionally stands in the well of the chamber while the Speaker reads the resolution of disapproval aloud.9EveryCRSReport.com. Expulsion, Censure, Reprimand, and Fine: Legislative Discipline in the House of Representatives The Senate does not follow the same ritual. Censure can also cost a member committee assignments and internal influence. Reprimand is lighter and does not require the member to appear. Under either, the member keeps the seat and full voting rights.
Criminal Prosecution While in Office
Members of Congress are not shielded from criminal prosecution. Article I, Section 6 does grant a privilege from arrest, but the Supreme Court has read the “Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace” exception to cover all criminal offenses, leaving the arrest privilege to apply in practice only to civil suits.10Constitution Annotated. ArtI.S6.C1.2 Privilege from Arrest
What members do have is the Speech or Debate Clause, which gives absolute immunity for acts inside the “legitimate legislative sphere,” meaning votes, floor speeches, and committee work.11Congress.gov. Overview of Speech or Debate Clause Anything outside that sphere, from bribery to tax fraud, remains fully prosecutable. Sitting members have been indicted, tried, and convicted while in office. A conviction does not automatically remove them; that still takes a resignation, an expulsion vote, or the next election.
Disqualification Under the 14th Amendment
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars anyone from serving as a senator or representative if they previously took an oath to support the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”12Constitution Annotated. Section 3 – Disqualification from Holding Office It was written for former Confederate officials, but the text is not limited to that era.
Enforcement is unsettled. A Reconstruction-era federal court held that Congress must pass implementing legislation before Section 3 can take effect, and in 2024 the Supreme Court held unanimously in Trump v. Anderson that states cannot enforce Section 3 against federal officeholders or candidates on their own.13Constitution Annotated. Overview of the Insurrection Clause (Disqualification Clause) Congress can also lift a Section 3 disqualification by a two-thirds vote of each chamber, and has done so in the past for individuals.
Voters Cannot Recall a Member of Congress
There is no federal recall. The Constitutional Convention considered a recall provision and rejected it, and the final document contains no mid-term voter removal process.14EveryCRSReport.com. Recall of Legislators and the Removal of Members of Congress from Office In U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton (1995), the Supreme Court held that states cannot add qualifications or removal procedures for federal office beyond what the Constitution specifies, noting the framers’ deliberate rejection of state recall.15Legal Information Institute. U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779 (1995) Voters get their say at the regular election. Representatives run every two years; senators serve six-year terms with roughly a third of the seats up each cycle.16Constitution Annotated. ArtI.S3.C1.4 Six-Year Senate Terms
What Happens to the Seat
A vacated House seat is filled by special election. The Constitution requires the governor of the state to issue a writ, and federal law lets states set the specific timing and procedures.17Congress.gov. House of Representatives Vacancies: How Are They Filled? There is no interim appointment in the House. The seat stays empty until voters choose someone new.
Senate vacancies work differently. Under the 17th Amendment, the governor may appoint a temporary senator to serve until a special or general election, but only if the state legislature has authorized such appointments.18U.S. Senate. Landmark Legislation: The Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution The rules vary by state, with some requiring a special election on a set schedule and others letting an appointee serve until the next regular general election.