A wave of House resignations this month has left lawmakers in both parties scrambling to explain why the chamber's ethics process moved so slowly that accused members simply walked away before facing real consequences. Now Republicans and Democrats alike say they want reforms, though the details remain thin and the institution's track record on policing itself inspires little confidence.
Three former representatives, Democrat Eric Swalwell of California, Republican Tony Gonzales of Texas, and Democrat Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida, departed the House amid allegations ranging from sexual misconduct to financial crimes. Their exits came as a bipartisan group of congresswomen threatened expulsion votes, as The Hill reported, turning the spotlight on a system that critics say let investigations drag on for years while accused members drew salaries and cast votes.
The departures were welcomed by many lawmakers. But the relief masked a harder question: Why did it take outside pressure, not the Ethics Committee itself, to force accountability?
The Cherfilus-McCormick case illustrates the problem in sharp detail. The Ethics Committee had been investigating the Florida Democrat as far back as 2023 over campaign finance allegations. The Justice Department indicted her last year on charges of stealing $5 million from FEMA. Yet the committee's work continued at its own pace. Ethics panel chairman Michael Guest, a Mississippi Republican, defended the timeline, saying Cherfilus-McCormick shuffled through three separate attorneys during the probe.
"Each investigation has to stand on its own, and so some investigations can be accomplished much quicker than others. It was a complex, financial crime, and there were a lot of documents that had to be gathered throughout the course of that investigation."
That explanation landed poorly with members who watched Cherfilus-McCormick resign just ahead of sanctions. Florida Republican Greg Steube, who spent months spearheading an effort to expel her, did not mince words.
"Two years is way too long. I don't know if they need more people, or if they're just inundated. But it shouldn't take that long, and she clearly milked this for as long as humanly possible."
Cherfilus-McCormick denies the charges. But her resignation precluded any vote on Steube's expulsion resolution, meaning the House never had to go on record. That pattern repeated with Swalwell and Gonzales, both of whom stepped down as expulsion threats mounted.
The Swalwell case carried its own weight. Fox News reported that the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department announced it is actively investigating a 2018 sexual assault allegation against the California Democrat after detectives met with accuser Lonna Drewes. Authorities said the alleged incident occurred in July 2018 at a business on Hammond Street in West Hollywood. The department described the investigation as "in its preliminary stages" with investigators "gathering information, reviewing available evidence, and conducting follow-up inquiries."
That a sitting congressman could face an active criminal sexual assault investigation while the House ethics process plodded along separately tells you everything about the speed and seriousness of the chamber's internal oversight.
Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters this week that leaders are examining "every potential avenue to tighten up the rules and make sure that women have an avenue to report." He added that he suspects any reforms would receive "bipartisan, almost unanimous, support."
On the Democratic side, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said he intends to work with the Ethics Committee and "thought leaders" to create a system "that treats victims and staffers with the dignity and respect that they deserve." Pete Aguilar, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, called for "an expedited process for these types of allegations."
The bipartisan framing is notable. As the Associated Press reported, Swalwell and Gonzales announced their resignations within hours of each other as they faced the prospect of House expulsion votes. A bipartisan group of congresswomen had threatened to file resolutions forcing those votes. House rules prohibit members from having sexual relationships with staff, and both resignations were tied to allegations involving misconduct with staff members or abuse of power.
Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, the New Mexico Democrat who heads the Democratic Women's Caucus, was on the front lines of the effort to oust Swalwell and Gonzales before they resigned. She framed the push in terms that acknowledged her own party's failures.
"We needed to protect the women staffers here. They needed to see that powerful men would be punished for sexually abusing women. Because it doesn't happen."
She also said Ethics Committee investigations "take too long", a point on which she found agreement across the aisle. Florida Republican Anna Paulina Luna, who joined Leger Fernández in the effort, went further.
"They need an overhaul in Ethics and, like, get rid of all of them, change the chair, all of it. It should not have taken three years for Ethics to do the right thing [with Cherfilus-McCormick]. Nor do I think it needs to take multiple years for Cory Mills' process to go through."
That last reference points to Rep. Cory Mills, a Florida Republican who has been under Ethics Committee investigation since last November. Mills has been accused of campaign finance violations, sexual misconduct, and using his congressional seat to enrich himself personally. He denies all charges. But Luna's willingness to name a fellow Republican suggests the bipartisan pressure campaign is not a one-off.
The Washington Examiner noted that the resignations were driven not by the formal ethics system but by this bipartisan coalition, and that Luna and Leger Fernández are already examining additional members. Columnist Tony Vanderhoef wrote: "The resignations of Swalwell and Gonzales are a beginning, not a resolution. The system that protected them is still intact."
Not everyone on the Ethics Committee accepts the criticism. Rep. Glenn Ivey, a Maryland Democrat and committee member, acknowledged that reforms should speed things up but cautioned that "the devil's in the details."
"The ultimate challenge is [there's] a lot of due process. Due process takes time, especially in the cases that have a lot of documents, like the financial transaction stuff, or the sexual harassment [and] assault kinds of things. Because then you're interviewing a lot of witnesses or [making] a lot of credibility determinations. So it's not easy."
Ivey proposed adopting a mechanism to enforce the panel's subpoenas more quickly, one concrete idea in a conversation otherwise heavy on generalities. He also offered a comparison that did his cause no favors: "There's no place you go where these are resolved fast, unless it's, like, El Salvador or something."
Due process matters. No serious person argues otherwise. But the current system does not just protect the rights of the accused, it protects the comfort of every other member who would rather not cast a politically painful vote. When an investigation runs for two or three years and the accused member resigns the day before consequences arrive, the institution has not delivered due process. It has delivered an escape hatch.
Speaker Johnson's pledge that the Ethics Committee confirmed wrongdoing on 25 charges against Cherfilus-McCormick only after years of investigation makes the point. The findings were real. The accountability was not. She was already gone.
The specific proposals floated so far remain thin. Johnson spoke of "tightening rules" and creating better reporting avenues. Aguilar wants an expedited process. Ivey wants faster subpoena enforcement. Luna wants to clean house on the committee itself.
What no one has publicly proposed, at least in the current discussion, is a structural change that would prevent the resignation loophole, the ability of a member to quit and avoid an expulsion vote, a public report, or any formal sanction. Until that gap closes, the incentive structure rewards delay. An accused member's best play is to hire lawyers, slow-walk document production, and resign when the walls close in.
The Cherfilus-McCormick ethics findings showed a member accused of misusing COVID-related FEMA funds while the committee took years to reach conclusions. The Mills investigation, launched last November, has no public timeline for completion. And the broader question of how many other cases are languishing remains unanswered.
Jeffries said the Democratic Women's Caucus would lead the Democratic charge on reforms. But the minority party cannot change House rules on its own. Any real overhaul requires Republican buy-in, and Republican leadership willing to accept that faster investigations might catch their own members, too.
That is the test. Luna and Leger Fernández passed it by targeting members of their own parties. Whether the broader conference and caucus follow that lead, or retreat into partisan protection, will determine whether this moment produces real reform or just another round of press conferences.
Meanwhile, the broader instability in the House continues. The resignations have left the chamber's margins razor-thin, and the political incentives to sweep misconduct under the rug have not changed.
What happened this month was not the ethics system working. It was the ethics system being bypassed by members willing to do what the committee would not: force a confrontation. The resignations came because a handful of lawmakers, Luna, Leger Fernández, and others, made the political cost of staying higher than the cost of leaving.
The Ethics Committee did not drive that outcome. Peer pressure did. And peer pressure is not a system. It depends on individuals willing to spend political capital, and it disappears the moment those individuals move on to other fights.
Congress has spent decades building an ethics apparatus designed to look serious without being fast, and to be thorough without being decisive. The result is a process that protects the institution's image while shielding its worst actors from timely consequences. Taxpayers fund the salaries. Staffers endure the misconduct. And the accused members walk away on their own terms.
If lawmakers on both sides are serious about reform, they can start by closing the resignation loophole, setting hard deadlines for investigations, and stripping the committee of excuses for multi-year delays. Anything less is just another speech about accountability from an institution that has made a career of avoiding it.
