As Rep. Eric Swalwell prepares to leave Congress and Rep. Tony Gonzales says he will step down, attention in the House is shifting to whether two more embattled lawmakers could soon face their own reckoning. A new Axios report says lawmakers returning from the April recess may not just confront the fallout from Swalwell's scandal but also a broader debate over whether the chamber is finally ready to act against multiple members in both parties who are already under ethics scrutiny.
The possible next names in that chain reaction are Rep. Cory Mills, a Florida Republican, and Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, a Florida Democrat. Both are already under serious review, and both were singled out in Axios' report as lawmakers being watched if the House shows it is willing to use its harshest punishments.
Swalwell's case became the immediate spark. The House Ethics Committee said Monday, April 13, that it had opened an investigation into whether the California Democrat violated House rules or other standards of conduct. That move came after multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against Swalwell, which he has denied.
Swalwell announced on Monday night he would resign from Congress, saying the controversy had become a distraction, even as he continued to dispute the accusations.
Gonzales is also now headed for the exit.
The Texas Republican said he will retire from Congress after admitting to an affair with a staffer who later died by suicide. His decision followed bipartisan pressure and an ethics investigation, further intensifying discussion inside the Capitol about whether House leaders can keep treating each case separately.
That leaves Mills and Cherfilus-McCormick as the two lawmakers drawing the most attention in the next phase. In Cherfilus-McCormick's case, the House Ethics Committee said on March 27 that an adjudicatory subcommittee found that Counts 1 through 15 and 17 through 26 in its statement of alleged violations had been proven after a public hearing. The full committee said it would determine what sanction to recommend after the recess. Cherfilus-McCormick has denied wrongdoing.
Mills, meanwhile, remains under Ethics Committee investigation. The committee announced in January that an investigative subcommittee would examine allegations involving possible financial disclosure issues, campaign matters and other conduct. Mills has denied allegations against him.
Even with frustration building, expelling a lawmaker is extraordinarily difficult. The Constitution gives each chamber power to expel a member only with a two-thirds vote, and the House's own historical record shows how rarely that happens. George Santos' 2023 removal made him just the sixth House member ever expelled.
That high bar is why the next fight may be less about one scandal than about whether the House is ready to set a new standard for policing itself. With Swalwell and Gonzales already on their way out, the question hanging over Capitol Hill is whether Mills and Cherfilus-McCormick are next, or whether the chamber will once again stop short of its most severe punishment
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