Does this mean that the CURRENT members (GOP majority) can choose not to seat the implicated incoming members?
Not if I am recalling correctly.
The session begins with the current membership recognizing and seating (R&S) incoming members. Members of the old, defunct session are not in attendance.
Those members who are re-elected are considered members of the last session so they are not involved in the R&S until they are R&S themselves. For this reason, the re-elected members are the first to be R&S.
Note, too that the re-elected members must be re-assigned to their committees by the speaker/caucus, they do not simply “carry-on like nothing happened”. That goes for all members, too. Since they are members of the last (now defunct) session, they have to be newly assigned/re-assigned.
Upside? Schitt may not be chair of intelligence.
(That joke will write itself so I’ll just leave it there.)