came forward with text evidence<\/a> that Gonzales had been sexually inappropriate with her as well.<\/p>\nArticle continues below this ad<\/p>\n
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In these\u00a0screenshots of text conversations from June 13 and June 15, 2020, Gonzales, shown in gray, probed whether his campaign’s political director would be interested in having sex with him or sending nude photos. At one point on June 15, he said, “I know what I want and won’t stop until I get it!” The political director’s messages are shown in blue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Staff graphic by Monte Bach<\/p>\n
Gonzales is currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for sexual misconduct. Lawmakers are forbidden from engaging in sexual relationships with their employees under House rules.<\/p>\n
But some members are eager for quicker action than an ethics referral. Though both Gonzales and Swalwell are no longer running for office, an increasing number of members have said they plan to vote to expel the two.<\/p>\n
\u201cGonzales and Swalwell are not fit to serve in Congress given their sexual transgressions against women who work for them,\u201d said Leger Fern\u00e1ndez, who chairs the Democratic Women\u2019s Caucus. \u201cThey should resign or be expelled.\u201d<\/p>\n
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In a House where Republicans have a narrow 217-214 majority, expelling both Gonzales and Swalwell \u2014 one member from each party \u2014 would be an easier ask for lawmakers worried about the partisan composition of the lower chamber.<\/p>\n
The expulsion frenzy could also sweep up lawmakers beyond Gonzales and Swalwell. Some members have also called for the expulsion of Reps. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Florida, whom the Ethics Committee found guilty of campaign finance violations, and Cory Mills, R-Florida, who is under an Ethics investigation for sexual and financial misconduct.<\/p>\n
In both Gonzales and Swalwell\u2019s cases, their respective House party leaders have called for them to drop their electoral campaigns but stopped short of suggesting resignation from Congress.<\/p>\n
Both Luna and Leger Fern\u00e1ndez can circumvent leadership to put their expulsion resolutions on the floor, under rules that allow members to take \u201cprivileged actions\u201d against one another. But expulsion requires a two-thirds majority of the House, meaning it must be bipartisan.<\/p>\n
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In the history of the House, only six members have been expelled \u2014 most recently, New York Republican George Santos, a serial fabulist, in 2023. But an initial expulsion resolution on the House floor against Santos failed, as many members argued against setting a precedent of expulsion before the Ethics Committee had finished its investigation and recommended how to proceed. And members have historically been content to let voters decide at the ballot box if a member\u2019s conduct is disqualifying.<\/p>\n
While the two-thirds majority for expulsion is a high bar to cross, numerous House members have pledged to vote yes.<\/p>\n
Already, a number of representatives from both parties \u2014 including Republicans Lauren Boebert, Byron Donalds, Bryan Fitzpatrick, Mike Lawler, Luna, Nancy Mace and Addison McDowell, and Democrats Jared Huffman, Pramila Jayapal, Julie Johnson, Ro Khanna, Leger Fernandez, Emily Randall and Nydia Velazquez \u2014 have announced support for expelling both Gonzales and Swalwell.<\/p>\n
If lawmakers do expel Gonzales, Texas\u2019 23rd Congressional District \u2014 which runs from San Antonio to El Paso County and covers much of West Texas along the border \u2014 would be vacant. It would be up to Gov. Greg Abbott to set the date for a special election to fill the seat at his discretion.<\/p>\n
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Democrats have overperformed their 2024 vote shares in special elections across the country this cycle, including a notable flip in a North Texas state Senate seat where the Democratic candidate outran Vice President Kamala Harris\u2019 2024 margin by over 30 percentage points.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump won Gonzales\u2019 23rd District in 2024 by 15 percentage points; Sen. Ted Cruz carried it by 8 points. It\u2019s a majority-Hispanic seat that national Democrats are already eyeing for the November general election, which pits gun YouTuber Brandon Herrera against Democratic newcomer Katy Padilla Stout.<\/p>\n
Herrera recently welcomed the prospect of dual expulsion votes.<\/p>\n
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\u201cSo if both Tony Gonzales and Eric Swalwell resign\/are expelled, there\u2019s no excuse by either party about it [a]ffecting the voting majority,\u201d Herrera wrote on social media Friday. \u201cCongress currently has the ability to expel two known sex pests in a fair, bipartisan, and morally necessary way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON – NOVEMBER 3: Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, walks down the House steps after a vote in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247942,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[820,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-247941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-mysastaff","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}