It Might Be Congressional Expulsion Season, on Both Sides of the Aisle

Edit: Since the initial publishing of this piece, California Democratic representative Eric Swalwell has also been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women, leading to members of Congress, including Democrats, likewise calling for his resignation or expulsion. He’s already withdrawn from his campaign for governor in California. Expulsion season indeed.

The saga of Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales (TX) took another turn for the strange and sordid this week when the member of the U.S. House of Representatives, who has already stepped down from his own reelection campaign, was revealed to be an even bigger scumbag and prolific attempted adulterer than had already been widely inferred. Gonzales has been in hot water on Capitol Hill for a while, after repeatedly denying and then admitting he was lying about an affair with a married staffer who later committed suicide in exceedingly grisly and tragic fashion. This week, more evidence emerged to show that for Gonzales, such indiscretions were hardly some isolated incident–four years before the affair in question, recovered text messages published by The San Antonio Express-News show the married House member and father of six, an avowed Catholic, repeatedly propositioning and pressuring a different campaign staffer for sex. Who knows how many other women he may have done the same to, but the revelations have reignited calls for Gonzales’ expulsion from Congress rather than allowing him to serve out the rest of his term until January … but it may not be the only expulsion on the docket. Congress may seek to keep its extremely delicate balance of power intact by tying Gonzales’ ouster to one from the opposite side of the aisle, in the form of fraud-indicted Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida.

In early March, Rep. Tony Gonzales ended his reelection campaign after admitting that the affair, which he initially denied was real, had indeed happened. Despite this, he is still technically a member of Congress in good standing, with right to vote on legislation, draw his salary and attend briefings–he sits on the important House Appropriations Committee and Homeland Security Committee. He has more or less been absent from Capitol Hill, however, not voting or attending President Trump’s State of the Union address in February, effectively trying to lay low. Perhaps this is what Speaker of the House Mike Johnson had asked him to do, given that Johnson both wants to be seen as punishing Gonzales but not actually ousting him from the House, because the Republican majority there is so incredibly thin, meaning he can afford almost zero defections on important party-line votes.

Gonzales, meanwhile, has been running the standard conservative Christian playbook for disgraced adulterers, which involves claiming that he has a divine mandate to remain in his position. In the right-wing podcast interview where he first admitted to the affair, calling it “a lapse in judgement” and a “mistake,” he assured the host that “I asked God to forgive me, and he has.” Well, that’s awfully nice of God to decide that Gonzales should remain as a member of Congress for another year, rather than leaving it to say … voters, for instance. Swell guy, God, although oddly fond of scumbags.

The newly revealed texts published by The San Antonio Express-News, however, demonstrate just how much of a consistent part of Gonzales’ character this behavior seems to have been. Speaking with the woman he hired to be his campaign’s political director in 2020, four years before his eventual affair with the staffer who would commit suicide, he harangues her for sexual photos of herself, constantly steers the conversation back to sex and more or less begs for an opportunity to sleep with her. The phrases veer all the way from “What kind of panties do you wear?”, to “squeeze my balls,” for an idea of what we’re talking about here. As Gonzales put it to her in a text in June of 2020: “I know what I want and won’t stop until I get it.”

That unnamed staffer, who fittingly and absurdly now works as a volunteer for Gonzales’ political rival and primary opponent Brandon Herrera, told the newspaper that she never really took his sexual hectoring seriously and simply tried to shut him down gently and be professional, but decided she needed to come forward after learning about Gonzales’ other aide who died by suicide.

“He obviously pursued, pursued, pursued her like he did with me,” said the unnamed former campaign staffer to the Express-News. “I never took him serious. It wasn’t until this poor girl died that I thought, ‘No, this guy is pure evil.’ This behavior needs to stop.”

Texas MAGA Republican Tony Gonzales should not serve another day in Congress. Each day Mike Johnson allows scum like Gonzales to remain in power, the reputation of the House sinks even lower than it already is. Mike Johnson is complicit in covering up Gonzales crimes #USDemocracy #ProudBlue

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— Marty Taylor (@realmartyt7.bsky.social) Apr 6, 2026 at 1:50 PM

This has all led to an ongoing investigation of Gonzales by the House Ethics Committee, the slow pace of which has frustrated members of the House on both sides of the aisle. Multiple outlets have reported that there is even more incriminating material against Gonzales has not yet emerged, with Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (admittedly a nutcase herself) saying that she has viewed more lewd text messages from Gonzales in briefings that haven’t yet been made public. She has minced no words in condemning what she called Gonzales’ “telltale predator behavior,” saying that “If I could expel him tomorrow, I would.” The question is whether Speaker of the House Mike Johnson could ever afford to entertain such an expulsion, considering that it would result in an empty seat and the potential need for a special election.

The simultaneous hot water and legal jeopardy of Florida Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, however, might actually make this a possibility. In November, Cherfilus-McCormick was federally indicted and charged with allegedly having stolen/laundered up to $5 million in FEMA funds, filtering the money to campaign expenses, friends and family. The House Ethics Committee conducted an unprecedented-in-recent-history public hearing that was effectively a trial, finding that Cherfilus-McCormick was guilty on 25 out of 27 charges in late March, a step that her lawyers attempted to argue would unfairly bias any jury against her in the upcoming federal criminal trial, which will carry the possibility of a long prison sentence. Regardless, the House Ethics Committee will at some point this month recommend a punishment for Rep. Cherfilus-McCormick to be voted on by the entire House, which could range from something as relatively mild as censure, to removal from committees or expulsion. The latter would need the support of two-thirds of the chamber, which is why expulsion rarely happens except in cases of extreme and obvious corruption, like that of Rep. George Santos, the last person to be expelled in 2023. President Trump of course commuted that prison term, being perpetually allied with fraudsters.

House Ethics panel finds Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, who has been criminally indicted on charges of stealing $5 million in FEMA funds, guilty of 25 ethics violations, setting stage for an effort to expel her. www.nbcnews.com/politics/pol…

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— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt.bsky.social) Mar 27, 2026 at 2:33 PM

By strange confluence, then, the campaigns on both sides for the expulsion of Rep. Tony Gonzales and Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick could actually end up aiding each other. Some Democrats in the House have reportedly signaled their willingness to discuss the expulsion of Cherfilus-McCormick, and the preservation of the holy status quo and balance of power is the one thing that might get Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on board with backing the expulsion of Gonzales. Members of the House have been floating the idea of pairing the votes together–one Republican and one Democrat both expelled from Congress simultaneously. Perhaps a first for the illustrious history of the U.S. House of Representatives?

“You can’t crime your way into legitimate power,” said Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA) of Cherfilus-McCormick. “Since she was found guilty, she should resign or be removed.”

“I’d vote to expel both him and Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick,” said Luna, meanwhile. “Both need to go.”

There would be something poetic and perfectly indicative of our gridlock congressional malaise about the idea of two separate members of the House of Representatives, from both sides of the aisle, being expelled at the same time, while changing absolutely nothing about the actual balance of power in Washington. It’s maybe the most depressingly gallows humor-infused of outcomes, which in our cursed timeline also makes it the most likely. Although who knows–maybe Congress will get a taste for it and just keep expelling people until only one remains on each side, perpetually saying “no, YOU listen to ME.” If that happened, would any of us actually notice a difference?