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Partly Cloudy A look at former Representative George Santos’ bills proposed in Congress
Languishing in legislative limbo
Throughout his 11-month tenure as the representative for New York’s Third Congressional District, George Santos introduced 43 bills to the House of Representatives on a wide range of issues and topics. While the disgraced congressman was unable to get any of them co-sponsored except for one, Santos’ legislative history offers an interesting reflection on the district’s least effective legislator in recent memory.
Following the revelation from a New York Times article that exposed most of Santos’ personal and professional history was a fabrication and that he had been involved in numerous schemes, the incoming freshman congressman found himself unable to pass legislation.
With so many controversies swirling around him, practically no other member of the House, even Freedom Caucus members who Santos had attempted to cozy up to like Marjorie Taylor Green, were willing to sign their names to his legislation, regardless of its content.
Phil Como, a veteran and resident of Sea Cliff, described the former congressman as “radioactive” and said that he thought it was obvious that Santos was too damaged politically to get anything done.
“He was never gonna move the peanut forward because of who he was,” Como added. “This fraud never had the chance to get anything done once he got found out.”
Due to the constant carnival of controversies and lawsuits that surrounded Santos, very little attention was paid to his legislative efforts. From a “SALT (State and Local Tax) Relief Act” to his “MINAJ Act,” Santos’ proposed legislation was a mixture of foreign policy, MAGA grandstanding and, most surprisingly, a few apparently reasonable ideas.
In terms of foreign policy legislation, Santos’ focus was largely on the People’s Republic of China, specifically aimed at the Chinese Communist Party. The disgraced former congressman wrote eight bills aimed at everything from investigating the CCP for the Wuhan lab leak, a controversial far-right conspiracy theory about the origin of the coronavirus pandemic, to preventing the sale of military technology to China.
Santos also put forth several bills that appear aimed at securing his credibility with the most extreme MAGA members, and his bills frequently aligned with far-right rhetoric. The best-known of these bills is likely his “Executive Mental Competency Protection Act,” which would have required the president undergo a yearly cognitive evaluation, likely a dig at incumbent Joe Biden’s advanced age.
Most interesting are the few bills that were locally focused or actually beneficial to the average American, such as his bill aimed at providing SALT relief or his proposed grant to improve spending on providing service dogs to veterans. The latter may just be irony, as Santos was accused by a then-homeless veteran of stealing money intended for the veteran’s dying service dog, Sapphire.
Ed Lieberman, former mayor of Sea Cliff, added that “to everyone else (Santos) was like kryptonite,” leaving all of his bills, even the more lucid ones, languishing in legislative limbo.
Lieberman said that he thought most legislators were focused on not associating with Santos and wouldn’t look at any of the bills he proposed.
“As an initiator of legislation, he was quite inept,” Lieberman said. “His greatest success as a legislator was to demonstrate the proper way to wear a sweater under a sports jacket.”
Both Lieberman and Como agreed that, regardless of who replaces Santos, there are pressing concerns for future congress members to address, both on the legislative front and the home front.
A top priority is restoring the SALT deduction on Long Island, capped at $10,000 per year since 2018, which makes it harder for residents in every district to afford their homes.
Lieberman and Como said they are pleased that Santos is no longer their congressman.
“This fellow was a huckster, a complete fraud,” Como said. “It’s good to be at the end of an ‘error.’”
