South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace issued a sweeping accountability statement on Monday, calling on four sitting members of Congress to resign immediately or face expulsion from the House. The four members named were Democrat Eric Swalwell of California, Republican Tony Gonzales of Texas, Democrat Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida, and Republican Cory Mills of Florida. By the end of the same evening, both Swalwell and Gonzales had announced they were leaving Congress.
Mace framed the demand as a matter of basic institutional credibility rather than partisan score-settling. “We don’t care what party you’re in. Stealing millions in taxpayer dollars, sexually assaulting your staff, lying about your service record, none of it is acceptable and none of it goes unnoticed,” she said. “Dropping out of a race is not accountability. Every one of them needs to resign immediately.”
The most dramatic situation involved Swalwell, a seven-term Democrat and, until last week, a frontrunner to succeed California Governor Gavin Newsom. Allegations surfaced Friday through the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN that a former staffer accused him of sexual assault during a 2024 incident she described as occurring when she was too intoxicated to consent. Three additional women separately alleged other forms of misconduct, including unsolicited explicit images and graphic messages.
More than 50 former Swalwell staffers signed a public letter calling the allegations “serious” and “credible.” The Manhattan District Attorney’s office opened a criminal investigation on Saturday. Swalwell denied the sexual assault allegation but acknowledged past “mistakes in judgment.” “I will fight the serious, false allegation made against me,” he wrote. “However, I must take responsibility and ownership for the mistakes I did make.”
In a statement announcing his resignation Monday, Swalwell also pushed back on the prospect of a House expulsion vote. “Expelling anyone in Congress without due process, within days of an allegation being made, is wrong,” he said. “But it’s also wrong for my constituents to have me distracted from my duties. Therefore, I plan to resign my seat in Congress.”
Gonzales had already acknowledged an affair with a married staffer who later died by suicide and had dropped his reelection bid last month. The momentum generated by the Swalwell situation made staying in office politically untenable. “There is a season for everything and God has a plan for us all,” Gonzales wrote on social media, before announcing he would file his retirement paperwork when the House returned on Tuesday.
Mace’s call also named Cherfilus-McCormick, whom the House Ethics Committee found guilty of 25 ethics violations and who faces accusations of stealing five million dollars in federal disaster funds — allegations she has denied. Cory Mills faces separate ethics accusations including stolen valour and financial and sexual misconduct, all of which he also denies.
The broader framing Mace applied aligned with her ongoing positioning as a congressional accountability voice regardless of party lines. She has been among the most prominent Republican supporters of the bipartisan push to compel former Attorney General Pam Bondi to testify before the House Oversight Committee regarding the Department of Justice’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. “Congress has serious moral and ethical problems and these four are the face of it,” Mace said. “Washington has protected its own for too long. It needs to end now.”
