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Excommunication is not "booting someone out of the church". This is a popular misconception. Nobody on earth has the power to remove someone else from the Catholic Church, not even the Pope. Only the person themselves can "defect by a formal act," usually by joining another religion.

Excommunication is a penal measure which essentially prohibits a Catholic from exercising his faith -- he can physically attend Mass, but that's all -- until he repents, formally, of whatever egregious sin caused the excommunication. The point is primarily to encourage the person to repentance.

Formal excommunication by name (called ferendae sententiae in canon law) is almost unheard-of for persons who aren't theologians and can't be misconstrued as speaking for the Church.

All that having been said, I think we're way overdue for the application of canon 915 (denial of communion to manifest, grave, public sinners) for persons like Pelosi and Biden.

(As Salvation mentioned, Sebelius has already been told not to present herself for communion by her diocesan bishop in Kansas, and the Abp. of Washington has said he'll abide by that as well.)