Michael Gold

They answer to their constituents.

And the general sense was that it was up to lawmakers and their constituents to decide whether they wanted to stay in their seat.

And in Santos' case, his colleagues basically took the decision out of everyone's hands and said, we're getting him out of here.

We want somebody who we think is more suited to the office.

Right.

And the House's decision to eventually remove him from office really set the stage for what we saw this week with Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzalez.

So I think we should start with Tony Gonzalez.

He's a Republican from Texas whose district runs along the U.S.

border with Mexico.

And in February of this year, a news article comes out accusing him of having a coercive sexual relationship with one of his aides who had killed herself by setting herself on fire.

Yeah.

And there were text messages that were pretty damning that showed that he was repeatedly texting her, pushing her for photos, pushing her for a relationship that she sort of reluctantly agreed to.

You know, a lot of women on the Hill who read those messages sort of recognize this pattern where men ask

repeatedly for things and women are so worn down that they feel abrogated.

And in this case, this man was her boss.

So there was a sense that this was just very coercive.

And frankly, the dramatic way in which she died, her lighting herself on fire, I think really horrified everybody.

It was just the kind of details of the story were really gruesome and disgusted a lot of people here.

So in 2018, the House passed a rule that forbid its members expressly from having affairs with their own staff.

And Gonzalez violated that rule.