Josh Marshall raises a very good point about the notion of waiting for Moore to get elected and then expelling him.

Over the last 48 hours, Republicans have been abandoning Roy Moore in droves. Last night on his Fox News show, Moore dead-ender Sean Hannity put Moore under a 24-hour deadline to prove his innocence or drop out of the race. In this climate it’s now widely assumed that should he be elected Moore either will be or should be expelled from the Senate over the multiple accusations of pursuing and in some cases assaulting teenage girls in the 1980s.

This is a very questionable idea.

Let me start by stating explicitly that Roy Moore is an execrable character. Before we ever heard of his sexual misconduct and alleged assaults, he had repeatedly and willfully disregarded the laws of the United States as a state judge. He is also synonymous with hatred and bigotry of various sorts. He’s awful. If he manages to get elected it will be a disgrace for the state of Alabama.

But we’re dealing here with issues which must be given due weight and consideration apart from Moore’s alleged crimes. Our entire constitutional system is based on duly constituted elections for public officials. The ability for a house of Congress to expel one of its own members is a power so great that it contains within it the power to overturn our entire system of government. Our whole system of government is based on the idea that the people of individual states decide who will represent them in the Senate rather than the Senate deciding who will or won’t represent a given state.

TBH, I think if Moore winds up being elected, his Senate colleagues will drop the expulsion idea like a hot rock and we’ll never hear about it again. But Marshall is correct in pointing out that expulsion is historically rare and is a power that should be used sparingly, if at all.