Congress responds

Michael “Ozzie” Myers was expelled from the House on October 2, 1980. The roll call was 376–30. The House’s institutional register identifies his bribery conviction as the reason and lists the action under H. Res. 794. He was the fourth person expelled from the House and the first since three members were expelled during the Civil War. [1]

Expulsion is the chamber’s most severe disciplinary action. The Constitution requires a two-thirds vote of members present and voting. A criminal conviction and an expulsion therefore answer different questions: a court determines criminal liability; the House exercises its own constitutional power over membership and conduct. One does not automatically perform the other’s work. [1]

This helps make sense of the different ABSCAM outcomes. Calling everyone “expelled” folds resignations and election defeats into a vote that did not occur for those people. Conversely, the fact that another member left before a final disciplinary vote is not evidence that the underlying conviction vanished. The dates and form of departure matter when asking how Congress reacted. Myers supplies the clearest case: a named resolution, a substantial majority and an actual removal from the chamber. [1]

Raymond Lederer was convicted on January 9, 1981, and resigned from the House on April 29. The House biographical directory records conspiracy, bribery, interstate travel to facilitate bribery and an unlawful gratuity. Its biography places his congressional service through the resignation date. It does not record an expulsion. [1]

Harrison Williams’s Senate case followed a separate and unusually prolonged path. A jury found him guilty on all nine counts on May 1, 1981. The Senate Ethics Committee recommended expulsion. The full chamber began its expulsion debate on March 3, 1982, and considered arguments over whether censure would be sufficient. Williams resigned on March 11 as support for expulsion became apparent. There was no final Senate vote removing him. [2]

The Senate historian describes a substantive dispute about evidence and fairness, not merely an administrative formality. Williams argued that government tactics had produced an unfair case; other senators stressed the obligation to protect the institution’s integrity. Reading those competing arguments is useful even when the criminal verdict is accepted. Congress’s disciplinary judgment was its own process, and a resignation stopped that process before its last step. It neither substituted an acquittal for the jury’s verdict nor converted the recommendation into an accomplished expulsion. [2]