Ah, George Santos. Gone but apparently not to be forgotten, at least not in any timely fashion. First, we learned that a Santos movie is in the works. It may be based on a book about him that was published last week, though I’m fairly sure the former congressman won’t like the title very much. And now some of his former colleagues in the House are drafting legislation that will be obviously based on his legendary antics. The bill in question is called the Congressional Pension Accountability Act. It was introduced by Republican Zach Nunn of Iowa and it would bar expelled members from receiving pensions after leaving the government. There are a couple of issues surrounding the bill that we’ll get to in a moment, but it should prove to be an interesting test of character if we get to find out how many of these swamp dwellers might actually have the temerity to vote against it. (Axios)

A House Republican on Monday introduced legislation barring lawmakers who are expelled from Congress from receiving congressional pensions.

It’s a direct response to the House’s expulsion last week of then-Rep. George Santos, who was accused of plundering his congressional campaign coffers to personally enrich himself.

Rep. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa) announced the Congressional Pension Accountability Act at a press conference on Monday morning.

Nunn was among the more than 100 Republicans who voted to expel Santos following the release of a bombshell House Ethics Committee report.

As Axios correctly points out, even if this bill passes it’s not likely to have any direct impact on George Santos himself. Members of Congress are not eligible for pension benefits until they have served for five years. Santos didn’t even make it through his first year before getting the boot. It’s unlikely that they would be able to make the law retroactive, so they probably wouldn’t have been able to cancel the pension of Jim Traficant, even though he served more than enough time to qualify before being expelled in 2002. (And he’s dead now anyway.)

Perhaps this law will provide some incentive for other members to behave better in the future. Or maybe not. But it might turn some attention over to the Senate and the situation with Bob Menendez. Each chamber makes its own rules, so the House couldn’t pass a bill impacting the benefits of Senators without their agreement. But if the Senate goes along with this and it’s signed into law, it could potentially be bad news for Menendez if they ever get around to removing him. After all, he’s going to need some sort of income to pay the storage fees for whatever vault he keeps all of his gold doubloons in.

How many members in either chamber would actually vote against this? They’re not talking about punishment for people who simply draw criticism after they leave office. You’ve got to commit some very serious sins to be removed and it rarely happens. Should those expelled members continue receiving a salary for the rest of their lives if they behaved that badly? It doesn’t seem like it.

On the more humorous side of things, imagine if this bill passes both the House and the Senate. Who is going to be the person to walk it up to the White House and tell Joe Biden that he needs to sign a law penalizing people for taking money from the wrong places? The jokes just write themselves. The sad part is, Biden would probably sign it anyway if his handlers thought it would help his poll numbers and simply ignore the awful optics of the situation.