Mother Jones
There Are Eric Swalwells Across State Governments
Two lawmakers—Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzales—resigned from office last week amid unrelated House Ethics Committee investigations over alleged sexual misconduct. And yesterday, the Committee stated that since 2017, they have initiated no less than 20 misconduct investigations against members of Congress, most of whom have not ended up resigning.
Sexual misconduct is pervasive in America’s statehouses, too, according to a new report by the National Women’s Defense League, a group focused on preventing sexual harassment in the workplace. The group started reporting on accusations against state lawmakers in 2023, tracking accusations going back to 2013.
NWDL has found credible sexual harassment allegations against 162 sitting state officials, in 424 incidents between 2013 and 2026. Six of those lawmakers were accused in 2025 — Ryan Armagost (R-Colo.); Ron Weinberg (R-Colo.); Jeremy Dean (D-Mo.); Dan McKeon (R-Neb.); Jeremy Olson (R-N.D.); and Solicitor General Judd Stone (R-Texas). Of those 162 lawmakers, 17 are still in office.
“The public record is only the tip of the iceberg,” said Sarah Higginbotham, NWDL co-director. Higginbotham noted that the report only includes public-facing accounts from people able to withstand the fear of retaliation from their bosses. “These numbers understate the harm.”
The problem is bipartisan: at the statehouse level, accusations against Republicans and Democrats happen at near-equal rates. The vast majority of victims are women, and 93 percent of accused officials over the past decade are men.
For Aftyn Behn (D-Tenn.), this isn’t surprising news. “Old-school sexism is absolutely back,” Behn said at a virtual press conference Tuesday morning, before offering a recent example. “Yesterday, a Republican female colleague of mine walked to the lectern on the Tennessee General Assembly House floor to present her bill. A member whistled at her. We all heard it, but nobody said a word, and we just moved on like nothing had happened.”
The problem may also be growing worse. In the years following the #MeToo movement, NWDL co-director Emma Davidson Tribbs said, the number of people reporting workplace sexual misconduct has decreased. “The recent dip in public reporting is a warning sign. It signals distrust in accountability systems,” she said. After Swalwell and Gonzales’ resignations, advocates hope they can push this issue back into the spotlight.
“This moment can, hopefully, give us momentum,” Republican Pennsylvania state representative Abby Major said at Tuesday’s press conference. This past year, five states enacted laws addressing sexual harassment in state legislatures—but most states still have relatively few protections in place. In practice, those protections might look like a confidential sexual misconduct reporting system, transparency around misconduct investigations, and other reforms. “We have to ensure that no one has to choose between their safety and their livelihood,” Major said.