If Rep. Cori Bush Has Her Way, Members of Congress Could Be Expelled for 1/6 Involvement

Missouri Representative Cori Bush sent out a tweet Monday urging her fellow House members to pass a proposed bill that would investigate and ultimately expel members of Congress involved in the January 6 attack.

In the tweet, Bush stated that her chamber should "commemorate the 1-year-anniversary of January 6th by passing my H.Res [House Resolution] 25 to investigate and expel the members of Congress who helped incite the violent insurrection at our Capitol."

We should commemorate the 1-year-anniversary of January 6th by passing my H.Res 25 to investigate and expel the members of Congress who helped incite the violent insurrection at our Capitol. — Congresswoman Cori Bush (@RepCori) December 27, 2021

H.Res 25 was originally drafted five days after the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Introduced by Bush, the bill was co-authored by nearly 50 other prominent House Democrats, including New York's Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Minnesota's Ilhan Omar and Florida's Val Demings.

The bill was the first authored by Bush, who took office on January 3.

The text of H.Res 25 outlines a procedure for "directing the Committee on Ethics to investigate, and issue a report on, whether any and all actions taken by Members of the 117th Congress who sought to overturn the 2020 Presidential election violated their oath of office...and should face sanction, including removal from the House of Representatives."

"Whereas despite losing the popular vote by more than 7,000,000 votes, [former President] Donald J. Trump, together with Republican Members of Congress, have commenced a near daily assault on the legitimacy of the 2020 election," the text continues.

The text also notes a number of efforts by Republicans in Congress to try invalidating President Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election. This includes "the decision...to join efforts to invalidate votes in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin suppresses the votes of millions of people," as well as "refusing to concede the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election and raising baseless allegations of fraud in States in which Black, Brown, and Indigenous people have been instrumental to the election outcome," according to the bill.

These actions and rhetoric, Bush's bill argues, helped to incite the violence that culminated in the January 6 attack at the Capitol, which ultimately delayed the certification of Biden's victory by several hours.

In her tweet, Bush then argued for expelling the members of Congress who incited violence by referencing Section Three of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. This clause states that "no person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States...who...shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same."

On January 11, the day she introduced H.Res 25 to the House, Bush released a statement saying simply that "this is sedition."

"We must hold these Republicans accountable for their role in this Insurrection at our nation's Capitol as part of a racist attempt to overturn the election results," the statement continued. "There is no place in the People's House for these heinous actions."

Despite Bush's urging, a vote on H.Res 25 has not yet occurred. The latest action on the legislation took place this past March when the bill was referred to the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties in order for that body to review it.

While H.Res 25 waits in the wings, the House has already taken some separate actions. This includes setting up a bipartisan select committee to investigate the events of January 6, which has subpoenaed multiple former officials connected with former President Trump's administration.

Newsweek reached out to Representative Bush's office for comment.