Republican women intensify pressure to expose, oust lawmakers accused of misconduct

Republican women in the House are turning sexual-misconduct allegations into a test of whether Congress can impose real consequences, or only force public embarrassment. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Anna Paulina Luna of Florida have emerged as an informal pressure group, using resignations, expulsion threats and pension talk to push lawmakers accused of misconduct out of Congress.

Their campaign gained force after Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat, and Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican, resigned amid sexual-misconduct allegations. Reporting on April 16 said Luna and Democratic Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez were preparing expulsion resolutions before the resignations made those moves unnecessary. The House remains narrowly divided, with Republicans holding 218 seats to Democrats’ 213, but the misconduct issue has become one of the few areas where the chamber has shown bipartisan alignment around the idea that abuse of power should carry consequences.

The House Ethics Committee said on April 20 that it had conducted 20 investigations into allegations of sexual misconduct by House members since 2017. It also released a historical chart listing 28 publicly disclosed investigative matters dating back to 1976. Of those, 15 had been publicly disclosed since 2017. The committee said seven cases produced findings and reports of violations, seven resulted in no violations found, 13 ended after a resignation stripped the panel of jurisdiction, and one remains open in an investigation involving Rep. Cory Mills.

That resignation problem is central to the current fight. When a member leaves Congress, the Ethics Committee said it loses jurisdiction, which means a resignation can function as an escape hatch before a case is fully adjudicated. The committee also said it had received no notifications of any payments tied to alleged sexual misconduct since a 2018 reporting-rule change, a detail that raises fresh questions about whether internal disclosure rules are catching financial settlements or simply missing them.

Mace has already seen one of her main tactics blocked. On March 4, the House voted 357-65-1 to send her resolution on public disclosure of Ethics Committee sexual-misconduct reports back to committee, effectively killing it. Her proposal would have required the panel to publish reports and related materials within 60 days, while redacting victims’ personally identifying information. The Ethics Committee warned that such disclosure could chill cooperation from victims and witnesses.

The political pressure is widening beyond party lines. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat, called the resignations an “important turning point” and said abuse of power should never be accepted in public office. Boebert has said she is pursuing efforts to strip Swalwell and Gonzales of their federal pensions, suggesting the next phase of the campaign may move from exposure to financial penalties. Whether Congress follows through will determine if this moment produces durable accountability rules, or only another round of naming and shaming.