Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina introduced a resolution Monday evening to expel Rep. Cory Mills of Florida from the U.S. House of Representatives, the same day Mills reportedly drafted his own measure to remove Mace. The dueling moves mark a sharp escalation in a months-long conflict between two Republican members that has already produced a censure attempt, a failed committee-stripping vote, and a formal House Ethics Committee investigation.
The spectacle lands at a moment the GOP can least afford it. With a razor-thin majority and a string of recent departures already straining Speaker Mike Johnson's ability to govern, two members of his own conference are now trying to throw each other out of the building.
Mace announced the resolution in a post on X, writing that "the swamp has protected Cory Mills for far too long and we are done letting it slide." She noted that prior efforts to censure Mills and strip his committee assignments had failed, with both parties blocking the moves. The Daily Caller reported that Mills did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did Speaker Johnson. The House Ethics Committee offered only "no comment."
NOTUS reported that Mills has already drafted his own expulsion measure targeting Mace. A source familiar with the matter told NOTUS the resolution is expected to reference, among other incidents, an exchange at Charleston International Airport in which Mace allegedly confronted security officers and TSA officials. The full list of incidents Mills plans to cite remains unclear.
In a statement to the Daily Caller, Mace laid out her case against Mills in blunt terms:
"Cory Mills lied about his military service, has been accused of beating women, has a restraining order against him, and has allegedly been stuffing his own pockets with federal contracts while sitting in Congress. As a survivor, I will always stand up and right the wrongs of others. He is only coming after me because he knows he's next."
Mace also posted a second, more personal statement, calling Mills "the worst kind of pond scum in Congress" and saying he "chose to come after me days after my father passed away, a real war hero, something Mills would not know anything about since he lied about his military record for years."
The conflict between Mace and Mills stretches back well over a year. In September, Mills was one of four Republicans who opposed a Mace resolution to censure Rep. Ilhan Omar. That vote appeared to sharpen the personal friction between the two lawmakers.
By November 2025, Mace had moved to censure Mills himself. She also forced a vote on a separate resolution to remove him from the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees. Most House Republicans voted to block the committee-stripping effort, and Mills narrowly avoided a formal rebuke. The broader conference, in other words, chose to shield him, a fact Mace has not forgotten.
Hours before that censure vote, the House Ethics Committee announced a formal investigation into Mills. The investigation followed a December 2024 report from the Office of Congressional Ethics that suggested Mills may have violated House rules by potentially retaining federal contracts while serving in Congress. That report remains publicly available through the House conduct office.
Beyond the ethics probe, Mills has faced a range of other allegations. The Blaze previously covered disputes over his military record. Independent journalist Roger Sollenberger has reported on allegations including that Mills fell behind on rent for a luxury Washington, D.C., penthouse with monthly payments exceeding $20,800 and that he was reportedly married in 2014 by a cleric at a Virginia mosque. Lindsey Langston, the 2024 Miss United States winner and Mills' former girlfriend, reportedly filed a restraining order alleging Mills threatened to release explicit videos of her.
Mills has not publicly responded to the latest round of allegations or to Mace's expulsion resolution.
Mace, for her part, has not been without her own share of headlines. In May, she displayed nude images of herself during a House Oversight subcommittee hearing on cybersecurity and information technology, alleging the images had been taken and shared without her consent. She used the moment to criticize South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, a rival in the state's gubernatorial race, for what she called a failure to prosecute alleged sex crimes tied to the incident.
The Charleston airport exchange that Mills' drafted resolution reportedly plans to cite has not been fully detailed in public reporting. But the fact that Mills is reportedly building his own case suggests the conflict has moved well past the point of quiet resolution.
Johnson's inability, or unwillingness, to manage the dispute speaks to a broader pattern. The Speaker has reversed himself under pressure on major legislation, struggled to hold his members in line on procedural votes, and watched his conference fracture on issue after issue.
The Mace-Mills feud does not exist in a vacuum. The Daily Caller noted that the dispute reignited on the same Monday that followed the resignations of former Democratic California Rep. Eric Swalwell and former Republican Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales, both of whom stepped down amid allegations of misconduct from former staffers. Those departures further thinned an already stretched House.
The exodus has been building for months. Thirty-six House Republicans have now headed for the exits, surpassing the 2018 record before the midterms. Every seat lost, whether to resignation, retirement, or internal warfare, chips away at the majority Johnson needs to pass legislation, fund the government, and advance the conservative agenda voters sent this conference to Washington to deliver.
The arithmetic matters. When Rep. Kevin Kiley left the Republican Party, it squeezed an already narrow margin. When three House Republicans sank a key tariff vote, Democrats walked through the opening. Now two more Republicans are trying to remove each other entirely.
Expulsion from the House requires a two-thirds supermajority, a threshold that has been reached only five times in the body's history, three of those during the Civil War. Neither Mace nor Mills is likely to clear that bar in the current Congress. But the resolutions serve a different purpose: they force the allegations into the public record, compel members to take a position, and consume floor time and leadership energy that could be spent on policy.
The open questions are significant. Has Mills formally filed his resolution, or is he still in the drafting stage? What specific incidents beyond the Charleston airport exchange does he plan to cite? Will the Ethics Committee's investigation into Mills produce findings before the political calendar overtakes the process? And will Speaker Johnson step in to broker a truce, or continue to let the feud run its course?
None of those questions had answers as of Monday evening. Johnson's office did not respond to the Daily Caller's request for comment.
Whatever the merits of the underlying allegations, and some of them, particularly the ethics referral and the restraining order, are serious matters that deserve proper investigation, the timing and manner of this fight serve no one who voted Republican in the last election.
Voters sent this majority to Washington to secure the border, rein in spending, and hold the executive branch accountable. They did not send it to watch two members stage a public cage match over personal grievances while the legislative calendar burns. If the allegations against Mills are as grave as Mace claims, the Ethics Committee should do its job and produce findings. If the allegations against Mace are substantial enough to warrant a resolution, Mills should file one and let the process work.
What neither member should be doing is turning the House floor into a venue for mutual destruction while the majority they both depend on shrinks by the week.
A party that cannot govern itself will not be trusted to govern the country. That lesson never arrives gently.