Rep. Eric Swalwell is having the worst few days of his political career, and things aren’t getting better. Four women have now come forward about his sexual misconduct, with one saying he sexually assaulted her twice when she was too intoxicated to consent, two saying he sent them unsolicited explicit photos or videos, and one saying he kissed her without consent in public.
The fallout has been immediate. His campaign for California governor is in free fall; senior staff have resigned, major endorsements have evaporated, and calls for him to drop out are growing louder, even from Democrats. Of course, while most Democrats have stuck to demanding he exit the governor’s race, calls for him to resign from Congress from his side of the aisle are virtually nonexistent.
However, that’s starting to change.
According to NBC News, a small number are now willing to go further. Two California Democrats went on record Saturday. Rep. Jared Huffman wrote, “He must now drop out of the Governor’s race and resign from Congress….If they don’t, I will support voting to expel both of them.”
“Democrats must not equivocate in the face of uncomfortable allegations about one of our own,” Rep. Sam Liccardo added.
Those are strong words — the kind you don’t often hear from members of a party about one of their own sitting congressmen.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) also said she would vote to expel Swalwell … if Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) is expelled along with him. “I think that this is very important that we believe women and that we show people across the Capitol and across the country that we will not accept this kind of behavior,” she said. “This is also important for staffers across the Capitol to see that their bosses don’t get to do this to them.”
There it is — the catch.
Gonzales, who dropped out of his Texas re-election race earlier this year, faced reports that he exchanged sexually explicit text messages with a staffer who later died by suicide. A second former staffer came forward to NBC News with similar claims. Troubling? Absolutely. But Gonzales has not been accused of committing any crime. Swalwell has. There’s a meaningful distinction between the two situations, and Democrats bundling them together isn’t a coincidence — it’s a calculation.
ICYMI: Did Eric Swalwell Accidentally Prove He’s Guilty of Sexual Assault?
And the math isn’t hard to follow. If only Swalwell gets expelled, Democrats lose a seat, and the Republican majority in the House expands by a seat. If Swalwell and Gonzales both go, it’s an even trade. The GOP’s vote advantage stays the same. That’s a much more palatable outcome for a party desperate to chip away at Republican control. Suddenly, “believing women” becomes a lot easier when it doesn’t cost you anything on the floor.
Here’s what makes the whole performance even harder to take seriously. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) said last week — several days before the Swalwell allegations even became public — that both Gonzales and Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.) “need to go.” Cherfilus-McCormick was indicted last November on charges of stealing $5 million in federal COVID-relief funds and funneling some of it into her own congressional campaign.
Yet, expelling Cherfilus-McCormick wasn’t part of Jayapal’s equation. If expelling Cherfilus-McCormick were added to the package, Republicans would net a one-seat advantage if all three were expelled from the House.
Republicans are open to expelling Gonzales. But will Democrats expel two of their own? Don’t count on it. Democrats see Swalwell’s career as finished, and they’re willing to throw him overboard — but only if they can drag a Republican down with him to keep the score even. The silence on Cherfilus-McCormick tells you everything you need to know about what this is really about.
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