A couple of weeks ago, I posited that there needs to be some sort of ability for the voters to hold elected officials and the judiciary accountable for their actions.
I don’t mean that in a retaliatory sense. I truly believe there needs to be a way to call our representatives on the carpet for their malfeasance. But that shouldn’t be construed as only if they perform poorly in their representation of us; it should also include other aspects, such as sexual assault, harassment, and all of the illegal acts that would get the normal everyday person fired.
Exhibit A: Rep. Eric Swalwell. Granted, a person is innocent until proven guilty, but if that person cannot perform a function because they are having to fight allegations, then his constituents should be able to step in.
Granted, Swalwell, who also was running for governor of California, suspended his campaign and later resigned from Congress, but that wasn’t because his constituents had any say in the matter. That was brought about partially by Swalwell responding to pressure from the party, and maybe, but I’m not buying it, his own conscience.
This isn’t the first scandal that Swalwell found himself in; he was linked to a Chinese spy in the 2010s, and his response was to deny any allegations of wrongdoing and move on.
Swalwell is only the latest in a series of bad decisions made by our elected officials. Sen. Bob Menendez had been implicated in child prostitution rings, corruption cases, and even was indicted for bribery and other charges, the result of which was essentially a sternly worded letter from an ethics committee. A second indictment in 2023 for corruption, and his subsequent conviction in 2025, was the bridge too far that ended his political career.
We can go on: Reps. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, Henry Cuellar and George Santos being the most recent, but many elected officials roaming the halls of Congress, including quite few from Texas, have been investigated for crimes and misdemeanors.
(I’m sure many also will include President Trump in this list; while the sentiment may be valid, the president has been impeached and also is bound by term limits. Congress is not, and my point is it should be.)
According to govtrack.us/misconduct, throughout the 2020s, all 5 1/3 years of it, there have been 123 cases of various types of violations of some sort in the halls of Congress. By way of comparison, throughout the 2010s, there are 133 documented cases. Since the turn of the century, there have been 310 cases of misconduct of some kind.
After things were said and done, there have been only 156 cases resolved through Congress’ own process, the rest dismissed. Of those results, there were only two expulsions, 22 court pleadings and 26 resignations. The rest of the cases that were not dismissed resulted either in fines, reprimands or censures.
The website keeps track of all cases and resolutions going back to the 1790s and shows incidents of misconduct and alleged misconduct jumping hugely each year beginning in the 1970s. That jump may have led to the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995, which essentially is a fund that has paid out more than $18 million in taxpayer funds to resolve sexual harassment and discrimination claims, resolutions that essentially leave the offending member nameless.
A measure put forward in the house in March, which would have released reports of misconduct and harassment against members, some of which who may have benefited from this fund, was sent to die in committee on a vote that passed 357-65 (including votes from Reps. Pete Sessions, Morgan Luttrell and Brian Babin).
What that suggests is that Congress cannot police itself and cannot keep spending under control, using the U.S. Treasury as a Get Out of Problems Free card. In simpler terms, they rigged the system to their benefit.
With a national media complicit in the cover up, there seems to be no avenue for the regular people to hold their elected representatives accountable, and that also leads to the spike in the questionable ethics displayed by elected officials.
Elections can help, but elections happen on Congress’ timetable, which also seems to favor the incumbent. It’s time to take the power back from Congress and put it where it belongs, with the people.
Tony Farkas is editor of the San Jacinto New-Times and the Trinity County News-Standard. He can be reached at tony@polkcountypublishing.com.
