Rep. Anna Paulina Luna moved Saturday to force a House vote on expelling Rep. Eric Swalwell from Congress, one day after a former staffer accused the California Democrat of sexually assaulting her twice while she was too intoxicated to consent.
"I am filing a motion to expel Eric Swalwell from Congress," Luna, a Florida Republican, wrote on X on Saturday. The announcement came hours after the San Francisco Chronicle published the former staffer's account on Friday, and after CNN reported three additional allegations from women who said Swalwell sent them inappropriate messages and nude pictures.
Swalwell denied everything. In a video posted to X late Friday, the congressman called the sexual assault claims "flat false."
"They are absolutely false. They did not happen. They have never happened, and I will fight them with everything that I have. They also come on the eve of an election where I have been the frontrunner candidate for governor in California."
That denial may not be enough to hold back the political fallout. Luna told Fox News she intends to bring the expulsion vote to the House floor as early as next week. "Eric has the option. I'm going to bring this vote next week," she said.
The San Francisco Chronicle report described a former staffer's accusation that Swalwell sexually assaulted her on two separate occasions when she was too drunk to consent. CNN then added three more women to the picture, each alleging inappropriate messages and nude photographs from the congressman.
Four accusers in total, and a sitting member of Congress who wants to be governor of the largest state in the country. All four women have now come forward publicly, and the political consequences are mounting on both sides of the aisle.
House Democratic leaders have not shielded Swalwell from the pressure. The New York Post reported that House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the accusations "incredibly disturbing" and urged Swalwell to immediately end his campaign for governor of California. That is notable: the top Democrat in the House publicly telling one of his own members to abandon a statewide race.
Luna went further. She did not stop at the gubernatorial campaign. She called on Swalwell to resign from Congress entirely.
"He should not be allowed to stay in Congress."
Newsmax reported that Luna also posted on X: "I am calling on @RepSwalwell to resign from office." Some Democrats urged Swalwell to drop out of the governor's race but stopped short of demanding his removal from the House, a gap Luna clearly intends to close.
The Swalwell motion is not an isolated act. Luna has positioned herself as one of the most aggressive voices in the House on member conduct, and she has not limited her targets to Democrats.
She has led calls to expel Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, a Florida Democrat, after the House Ethics Committee found in March that Cherfilus-McCormick committed dozens of ethics violations related to campaign finance activity. Cherfilus-McCormick has denied those allegations. Luna posted on X Saturday: "Sheila McCormick will be expelled by the end of the month if she does not resign now. The vote will be called. Resign."
Luna also pressed for Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican, to be censured and stripped of his committee assignments. Text messages said to be extracted from a staffer's phone appeared to show Gonzales trying to solicit sexual material from her. Gonzales pushed back on that characterization while acknowledging the affair was a "mistake." Gonzales has faced mounting political consequences for the episode.
That willingness to go after a fellow Republican undercuts any easy claim that Luna's Swalwell motion is pure partisanship. She has also worked jointly with Republican and Democratic lawmakers to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act and has been described as a staunch advocate for victims of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Expelling a member of Congress is extraordinarily rare. Only six House members have been expelled in the entire history of the institution. The most recent was former Rep. George Santos, the New York Republican removed after an ethics review found he misused campaign funds and falsified his background.
Expulsion requires a two-thirds majority vote, a bar that makes it nearly impossible without bipartisan support. Luna's privileged motion would force the question to the House floor, but getting 290 or so votes is a different matter entirely. The Washington Times reported that Luna framed both the Swalwell and Cherfilus-McCormick cases as part of a broader congressional accountability fight, posting on X: "I am not going to act like it is fine. This is NOT okay."
Whether enough Democrats would cross the aisle to remove one of their own remains an open question. Jeffries's public rebuke of Swalwell's gubernatorial bid signals that the party leadership sees the allegations as serious, but calling a campaign "over" is a long way from voting to end a colleague's House career.
The House has historically preferred to let scandals resolve through resignation, retirement, or the ballot box rather than the formal expulsion process. Past efforts to bring transparency to congressional sexual misconduct files have met resistance from members of both parties.
Swalwell has been running as the frontrunner candidate for governor in California, his own characterization, offered in the same video where he denied the assault allegations. That race now faces an obvious cloud. Mounting calls from Democratic leaders and others for Swalwell to end his gubernatorial bid have followed the Chronicle and CNN reports.
The Hill reached out to Swalwell's congressional office for comment but did not report receiving a response. His public defense so far has consisted of the late-Friday video on X and the blanket denial that the alleged incidents ever occurred.
Swalwell's vulnerabilities extend beyond the assault allegations. A court filing has separately challenged his eligibility for the California governor's race, and questions about his residency have dogged his candidacy.
Luna said she plans to bring the expulsion vote as early as next week. Whether the motion gains traction will depend on how many members, Republican and Democrat, are willing to act on the allegations before any formal investigation concludes. The former staffer's account, the three additional women's allegations, and Swalwell's blanket denial are all on the record. No ethics committee review of the Swalwell matter has been reported.
The identities of the three additional women referenced in the CNN report, the specific dates and locations of the alleged incidents, and the question of whether Swalwell's congressional office will offer any response beyond his X video all remain unanswered.
When four women come forward and the accused congressman's first instinct is to call it a campaign-season plot, the House owes the public more than a shrug and a floor speech. If the institution won't police itself, voters will remember who tried, and who looked away.
