Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Dublin, makes his pitch to become the next California governor at the California Democratic Party state convention last month in San Francisco. Swalwell has rejected claims put forward by rival candidate Tom Steyer that he’s not a California resident.
JOSÉ LUIS VILLEGAS
jvillegas@sacbee.com
Rep. Eric Swalwell is pushing back on claims from billionaire Tom Steyer, his rival in the governor’s race, that he doesn’t actually live in the state he’s campaigning to lead.
In a letter Thursday, Steyer’s attorney, Ryan Hughes called Swalwell, D-Dublin, a California resident “on paper only,” noting the Democrat purchased a home in Washington D.C. and is registered to vote in a Livermore home he doesn’t own. Hughes urged California Secretary of State Shirley Weber to reconsider the office’s stance, dating at least as far back as 2018, that the state constitution’s five-year residency requirement “violates the U.S. Constitution and is unenforceable.”
“If elected, questions of legitimacy would hang over Swalwell, allowing the Trump Administration to sow doubt, exploit the ambiguity, and advance its perverse agendas,” Hughes said in the letter, which was first reported by Politico.
In a court filing Friday, Swalwell submitted a sworn declaration that he has been a California resident since 2006. His attorneys also filed a declaration from Kristina Mrzywka, his former deputy campaign manager’s sister-in-law, saying Swalwell and his wife have rented property in Livermore from her since June 2017, paying rent every month.
The same day, Weber’s office argued that the Secretary of State is not obligated to enforce the residency requirement.
“Nothing in these statutes requires Respondent to look beyond a candidate’s attestation in the Declaration of Candidacy and conduct a fact-intensive investigation into their residency status,” Attorney General Rob Bonta wrote on Weber’s behalf.
With eight Democrats in the running for governor and no clear frontrunner, Steyer has singled out Swalwell in ads funded by the more than $79 million of his own money. Swalwell, a longtime critic of President Donald Trump and frequent guest on cable news shows, has in recent weeks won an increasing number of congressional endorsements. Steyer, who made his money as a hedge fund manager, casts himself as a progressive stalwart who will institute single-payer healthcare and close corporate tax loopholes. Both men ran for president in 2020 but dropped out without winning any delegates.
A Public Policy Institute of California poll released last month showed Steyer and Swalwell are in a dead heat with former Rep. Katie Porter as well as Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco ahead of the June 2 top-two primary.
Swalwell’s campaign accused Steyer of recycling talking points from right-wing filmmaker Joel Gilbert — known for documentaries falsely claiming Barack Obama is a Marxist and Paul McCartney is dead — who sued Swalwell in January over the residency claims. The case is ongoing, and prompted the recent legal filings from Swalwell and Weber.
“These are all tired talking points from a MAGA quack who screams that Bruce Lee is alive and Paul McCartney is dead,” said Micah Beasley, Swalwell’s communications director, said in an email Friday. “Eric rents a home in the East Bay. There is and never has been any question about that.”
Beasley said Swalwell’s family plans to move back to California full-time if he wins the governor’s race.
The Trump administration has also called Swalwell’s residence into question. Last year, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte referred Swalwell to U.S. Attorney Pam Bondi for potential mortgage fraud charges by allegedly claiming his D.C. home as a primary residence. Swalwell countersued, calling the claims a “gross mischaracterization of reality” and pointing to an affidavit he signed saying the home would be his wife’s primary residence but not his.
The Trump administration has targeted political opponents with accusations of mortgage fraud, though those claims have yet to stand up in court.
Tom Steyer, a billionaire and entrepreneur, speaks during a campaign stop in Sacramento last week. Steyer’s campaign has singled out Swalwell in recent attack ads. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com Swalwell is ‘the perfect tenant’
Swalwell, 45, grew up in Dublin, where he served as a city council member and Alameda County prosecutor before winning his first congressional race in 2012.
At some point after Swalwell remarried in 2016 and had three children, he and his wife, a hospitality executive, decided to relocate the family to Washington D.C., while maintaining some presence in the Bay Area. The Swalwells purchased a $1.2 million home in Washington, D.C. in 2020.
In an interview, Tim Sbranti, Swalwell’s former deputy chief of staff, said he suggested Swalwell rent a room in a Livermore house owned by Mzrywska as a way to maintain an affordable base in an expensive district.
The Democrat now shares what Zillow describes as a three-bedroom, 1,350-square-foot house with a family of three; Sbranti described Swalwell as “the perfect tenant” given his long work hours, but said he wasn’t sure how often Swalwell stayed in the home.
In her sworn declaration, Mzryskwa said Swalwell lives at the property when he is in the East Bay and keeps “significant belongings there at all times,” but did not say how often he was there.
Swalwell’s campaign did not respond to questions about why his wife, Brittany Watts, is also registered to vote at the Livermore home when she lives in Washington D.C.
Most Congressional representatives maintain two homes — one in their home district and one in the Washington D.C. area. And there is no federal law requiring congressional representatives to live in their districts.
Richard Hasen, an elections law expert at the UCLA, said Swalwell’s living arrangements were “not surprising.”
“It’s quite difficult for members of Congress to maintain two homes, especially if they were not wealthy before joining Congress and have to rely on their congressional pay,” Hasen said in an email. “It’s even harder when they have kids in school or spouses with careers that require them to be regularly in their home state or in D.C.”
Jackie Rankl, the president of the Tri-Valley Democratic Club, said Swalwell was “very accessible” to her and the other members of the club, which has not endorsed him.
“We used to host him a lot more in person until he started getting death threats,” she said, and he has since switched to appearing via Zoom.
Rankl said she last saw the congressman at a 49ers watch party in San Francisco in January.
Will residency issue resonate with voters?
Steyer has attempted to make Swalwell’s whereabouts a central issue in the governor’s race.
One ad questioned why Swalwell missed more roll call votes than any other member of Congress, including Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Arizona, who died in office in March 2025.
Steyer’s campaign pulled an initial version of the ad that some critics said used Grijalva’s death as a punchline. Grijalva’s daughter, Adelita, who succeeded him in office, called the ad “shameful” and later endorsed Swalwell.
Steyer’s campaign removed reference to Grijalva but has continued to air the ad on Facebook and YouTube.
Steven Maviglio, a Democratic campaign consultant who does not have any clients in the governor’s race, called Steyer’s attacks on Swalwell’s residence “peripheral noise” that most voters would ignore. Maviglio said Swalwell’s living arrangements were typical of California lawmakers he’d known while working on Capitol Hill.
But Maviglio predicted the ads on missed congressional votes may be more potent. He said Steyer’s financial resources allowed him to go on the attack while other candidates were busy fundraising — a notable edge in the crowded field where candidates were racing to define themselves and their rivals.
“If [Swalwell] had the resources that Steyer had, he’d be doing the exact same thing,” Maviglio said.
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Lia Russell covers California’s governor for The Sacramento Bee’s Capitol Bureau. Originally from San Francisco, Lia previously worked for The Baltimore Sun and the Bangor Daily News in Maine.