Seriously, expulsion is a bit ridiculous.
However, the national party and the Senate GOP caucus need to sit down with these two and explain the concepts of “party discipline” to them. Harkening back to the “stimulus” vote, it didn’t matter whether they thought the bill was good or bad... the simple fact the the Democrats ramrodded it through without any discussion with the minority party demanded that the GOP be unified in their opposition, as was the House GOP.
This is not pettiness, but simply protecting the ability of the minority party to be in any way effective. By betraying the rest of the party, they have also marginalized themselves, for they had established a precedent that members of the GOP caucus could “defect” on any issue. The next time, it could have been one important to one of them, and they’d see themselves betrayed in turn. (Not likely, but theoretically possible.)
This is mostly moot, now that the ‘rats will have 60 seats. But it is still important to show party discipline. If the ‘rats force through another bill without any input from the GOP, then the ‘rats need to “own” it without ANY Republican votes.
Yep, the GOP needs their own version of LBJ, who as Senate Majority Leader, knew how to keep the guys in line.