Ethics avalanche brewing in the House as Swalwell, Gonzales face possible expulsions

WASHINGTON (CN) — House lawmakers fresh off a two-week Easter recess won’t get much time to breathe this week before they’re thrust into the political fallout from a pair of sexual misconduct scandals that have raised calls to remove two members of Congress from office.

It’s a bipartisan reckoning for the lower chamber, which in recent weeks has grappled with the details of Republican Representative Tony Gonzales’ affair with a staffer and is now facing a flurry of sexual assault accusations against a Democrat, California Representative Eric Swalwell.

The debacle in Washington — which has seen Gonzales drop his reelection bid and Swalwell back out of the California gubernatorial race — will also likely force House lawmakers to vote on whether to remove their accused colleagues from the chamber entirely. Florida Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican, has said she will introduce a resolution this week to kick Swalwell out of Congress.

Democrats are expected to respond with a similar measure to remove Gonzales.

Swalwell, widely regarded as the favorite to secure the Democratic nomination to replace Gavin Newsom as California’s governor, suspended his campaign on Sunday night amid accusations he sexually assaulted a former staffer and several other women. In a statement posted to social media, the congressman apologized to his family, friends and staff for “mistakes in judgment,” but denied the accusations against him.

“I will fight the serious, false allegations that have been made — but that’s my fight, not a campaign’s,” he wrote.

After the San Francisco Chronicle late last week reported a former staffer’s accusation that he’d assaulted her on multiple occasions, Swalwell, 45, denied the charges in a video message, calling them “flat false.” But he also repeated that he’d made “mistakes in judgment,” apologizing to his wife for the unspecified misconduct.

The California Democrat’s decision to end his gubernatorial run came after a mass exodus of his campaign staff and a sweeping rebuke from many members of his own party. By the end of the weekend Swalwell had lost almost all his endorsements, and top lawmakers including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries had called on him to end his bid for governor.

While it appears Swalwell’s political woes won’t end alongside his campaign, it’s unclear whether the effort to remove him from Congress would succeed. In the House, an expulsion resolution requires two-thirds support — meaning a significant contingent of Democrats would need to agree with all Republicans to boot their colleague from the chamber.

And Democrats have already signaled that any move to expel Swalwell will be met with a companion measure aimed at removing Gonzales, who is already facing an ethics probe over his admitted relationship with a former staffer who later died by suicide.

The Texas congressman, who in March dropped out of a runoff contest in the Lone Star State’s 23rd Congressional District, acknowledged his 2024 affair with Regina Santos-Aviles. The former House staffer’s husband has said she received text messages from the lawmaker asking for explicit photographs.

Santos-Aviles, who resisted Gonzales’ advances, died by suicide in September after she set herself on fire in the backyard of her Uvalde, Texas, home. Before she died, she told police she had learned her husband was having an affair.

Gonzales has since been accused of sending similarly explicit text messages to another staffer working on his 2020 campaign.

Much like Swalwell, it’s unclear whether Gonzales’ Republican colleagues would get behind a measure to remove him from office. Though some GOP lawmakers have called for the congressman to face accountability, congressional Republicans have been largely tight-lipped on the matter. House Speaker Mike Johnson said the accusations against Gonzales are “detestable” but has resisted questions about whether the Texas lawmaker should resign.

House Republicans control a slim majority in the lower chamber, and some in the GOP worry about the political consequences of removing a crucial vote from their conference.

As of Monday morning, no member of Congress has filed an expulsion resolution against Swalwell or Gonzales. Luna, writing in a post on X Sunday night, told the California Democrat he had 24 hours to announce his resignation.

“Both you and Tony are a disgrace,” she said, tacking on the Texas Republican.

Sexual assault accusations against the pair of House lawmakers aren’t the end of ethics scandals plaguing the lower chamber. The House Ethics Committee last month concluded Florida Representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, also a Democrat, violated chamber rules amid claims she stole roughly $5 million in disaster relief funds and used them to foot the bill for her congressional campaign.

The panel’s conclusion may mean that Cherfilus-McCormick will herself face an expulsion resolution in the coming weeks. Florida Representative Greg Steube has already said he would force a vote on her removal.

The congresswoman is facing criminal charges over accusations of money laundering and illegal campaign contributions. She has pleaded not guilty.

Follow @BenjaminSWeiss