John Ensign

The Last Senate Expulsion: 1862 (With Some Close Calls Since)

Eric Kleefeld | May 12, 2011, 3:40PM

With the news that the Senate Ethics Committee would likely have recommended the expulsion of former Sen. John Ensign (R-NV), who resigned last week, it's worth asking the question: When was the last time a senator was actually expelled?

The last House expulsion was in 2002, with the Senate expelling Rep. James Traficant (D-OH) after he was convicted on corruption charges, but the last Senate expulsion was much further back. As the Senate historian's office told TPM, the last time a Senator was expelled was in 1862, when Sen. Jesse Bright (D-IN) was expelled for supporting the Confederacy. Indeed, a total of 15 senators were expelled for that reason in the early years of the Civil War, with Bright being the last -- and also the only one from a non-Confederate and non-border state.

On other rare occasions, as in the case of Ensign, senators who faced likely expulsion would instead resign before such a vote would be taken. In recent history, Sen. Bob Packwood (R-OR) resigned in 1995 after the the Ethics Committee recommended expulsion following an investigation into alleged sexual abuse of female former staffers. In 1982, Sen. Harrison Williams (D-NJ) resigned after he had been convicted of bribery the previous year, as a result of an FBI sting, and efforts to appeal the verdict had failed.

Here's what got Bright expelled, courtesy of the Senate's history web site:

Read more »