Jack Shafer writes:

Nowhere in the Constitution—and this is excellent news for freshly sworn-in Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)—does it stipulate that a House member must have the mental capacity to cook on all four burners.

This is in keeping with the Framers’ general idea that only the lowest bars should be set for officeholders. They declined to cordon off Congress with credential and qualification roadblocks, stating in Article I, section 2, clause 2 that House members need only be 25 years old or older and a U.S. citizen for at least seven years. This left plenty of room for the daft, the moonstruck, the brainsick, the rabble-rousing and the witless to run for the seats. And they have, often gaining office, as Rep. Greene recently did, to the horror of many.

As CNN, the Washington Post, POLITICO and a score of other outlets have reported, Greene is a shambles of a human being. She subscribes to or has promoted an awful bunch of irrational and absurd ideas and positions, so irrational and absurd that you’d be doing her a favor by calling them merely “fringe.” She has trafficked in false QAnon claims of a global pedophilic-satanic cabal involving top Democrats and Hollywood celebrities; she “liked” a comment suggesting the Parkland school massacre was a “false flag” operation and asserted much the same about the Sandy Hook killings; she appeared to support the execution of Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi (also accusing Pelosi of treason); suggested the Las Vegas shooting was part of a plot to abolish the Second Amendment; claimed the 2020 presidential election was stolen; and asserted the 2018 midterms, in which Democrats took the House, represented “an Islamic invasion of our government.” On Jan. 21, shortly after Joe Biden took the oath, Greene filed, as she had promised, articles of impeachment against him. Her articles of impeachment won’t go anywhere, but they gave us a pocket preview of her flagpole-sitting skills.

And that’s just for starters. Greene has said many more ugly and stupid things. Called out for these offenses, she has mounted the lame defense that some of the social media postings and statements came before she ran for Congress, when “teams of people” had managed her accounts, so they really shouldn’t count against her. Don’t for a minute think she’s apologizing, but she has now deleted dozens of them.

Greene’s ramblings have predictably led to demands by several members of Congress, including one who names her as a verbal accomplice in the Jan. 6 insurrection, that Congress should expel her for her transgressions. “This woman should be on a watch list. Not in Congress,” Hillary Clinton tweeted this week.

The Constitution gives the House wide latitude to expel members for violating its rules, breaking the law or engaging in “disorderly behavior.” Without a doubt, Capitol Hill would be a saner, more civil place if Greene were catapulted from her seat back to Georgia, where she came from. The House has used this power sparingly, giving three members the boot in 1861 for supporting the Confederacy and two more recently after they were convicted on criminal charges of bribery. Expulsion, which takes a two-thirds majority vote, isn’t the only punishment the House can mete out. It can censure a member with a simple majority, forcing her to stand in session and listen to her colleagues rebuke, or otherwise reprimand her. A host of representatives and senators have suffered the shame of censure or reprimand for their conduct since the establishment of Congress. [Continue reading…]