Reps. Nancy Mace and Cory Mills try to expel each other from the House – on the same day
We could be “killed,” warned Hermione Granger in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, “or worse, expelled.”
What the resolutions do
In what may be an unprecedented action in U.S. history, two House members both filed resolutions to expel each other from Congress. Even more surprising, they’re from the same political party.
On April 20, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC1) moved to expel Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL7). That exact same day, Rep. Mills moved to expel Rep. Mace.
What are the accusations?
Mills
Rep. Mills faces multiple accusations, including that he allegedly assaulted a woman and threatened to leak nude photos of his ex-girlfriend.
The Washington Post reported that D.C. police were originally going to arrest Mills for assault, based on a woman’s testimony and visible bruises, but a lieutenant directed them not to after the woman recanted her story – reportedly at Mills’s own urging.
Mills is also accused of falsifying his military service records and committing campaign finance violations.
The House Ethics Committee is currently investigating him.
Mace
Rep. Mace is accused of overcharging the government for her D.C. housing reimbursement, though she blames her ex-fiancé for the discrepancies. The House Ethics Committee is currently investigating her, too.
(It gets more complicated: Rep. Mace also publicly accused her ex-fiancé of sexual assault in a scathing House floor speech last year, though he denies the allegations. A judge subsequently issued a gag order barring Mace from publicly discussing the allegations any further while a trial is ongoing.)
The expulsion resolution also accuses Rep. Mace of “disorderly behavior,” for several incidents, including one where she allegedly went on a profanity-laced tirade directed towards security agents at a South Carolina airport. The official legislative text in Congress quotes her rant by using the F-word twice – uncensored and fully spelled out.
Has this ever happened before?
This appears to be a first. No “dueling” expulsion resolutions – directed by two House members at each other – seem to have previously occurred, as far as A Bill a Minute could find.
Official resolutions to expel a House member are usually introduced a few times per year, in the modern polarized era, but A Bill a Minute was unable to locate any other such “retaliatory” measures.
Besides, expulsion resolutions rarely work – usually either because they never receive a vote, they’re voted down, or the member in question resigns first.
2026 expulsions
Indeed, so far in 2026 alone, three House members faced expulsion resolutions but resigned first.
Yet those three examples all differ from the Mace-vs.-Mills fight in a key way: they were each introduced by a member of the opposing party – a Democrat seeking to expel a Republican, or vice versa. Reps. Mace and Mills, though, are both Republicans.
What were those three recent expulsion measures and resignations in 2026?
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL13) introduced a resolution to expel Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA14) on April 13, for allegations of sexual assault. He announced his resignation later that same day. He also suspended his campaign for California governor, for which he polled among the leading candidates.
Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-NM3) introduced a resolution to expel Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX23) on April 14, for having a sexual relationship with his staffer. He actually announced his intention to resign the day prior, but apparently Rep. Fernandez couldn’t wait for his resignation to actually take effect. (The story turns tragic: that staffer died by suicide after lighting herself on fire.)
Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL17) introduced a resolution to expel Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL20) on April 20, for corruption. She resigned the next day. Her family-owned healthcare company was accidentally overpaid $5 million for Covid vaccination staffing, but instead of reporting the overpayment or returning the money, she spent it on her own campaign instead. Her federal trial, with a potential prison sentence, will start in February 2027.
What each person says
Time for a literal case of “he said / she said.”
Both representatives here accuse the other of conduct unbecoming of a member of Congress, while both also insist they won’t step down.
Mills
She said: “The evidence against Mills is overwhelming: beating women and telling them to lie about it, cyberstalking women, [and] lying about his military service,” Rep. Mace said in a press release. “Any member who votes to keep him here is voting to protect a woman beater and a fraud. He needs to be expelled immediately.”
He said: “If someone can give me a good reason, I’d be more than happy to listen to it. But until we can do that, absolutely not, no — I don’t plan to resign,” Rep. Mills said. “Why not let the investigating body and the Ethics Committee be able to do their jobs? We’re very happy to see what the outcome is.”
Mace
He said: “Such conduct, whether fully adjudicated or not, reflects a pattern of ethical lapses, abuse of public trust, workplace toxicity, staged incidents for political gain, and disorderly behavior that undermines the dignity of the House of Representatives and erodes confidence in its members,” Mills’s expulsion resolution reads.
She said: “Nowhere did I say I was retiring,” Rep. Mace posted on X, formerly Twitter. “Internet is wild. So too are my opponents spreading this nonsense,” referencing a New York Times report that she was considering resigning.
What happens next
Both expulsion resolutions have been referred to the House Ethics Committee, although neither one has attracted a single cosponsor, from either party.
Many House members who face potential or likely expulsion choose to resign instead, as the recent examples of Reps. Cherfilus-McCormick, Gonzales, and Swalwell demonstrate. At least so far, though, Reps. Mace and Mills both insist they won’t.
A House expulsion requires a two-thirds vote from the chamber. The Senate and president are not involved, since the House sets its own rules and retains power over its own members.
A few House members have previously been “successfully” expelled, although historically, the punishment is rare. Only six members have been expelled, three of them in 1861 during the Civil War for supporting the Confederacy. The sixth was both recent and prominent: George Santos in 2023.