House lawmakers are bracing for another wave of evictions.
Former Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) avoided the boot only by giving up their seats in the face of allegations of sexual misconduct with staffers.
Now, the impeachment battle is poised to enter phase two, as lawmakers from both parties plan to remove Florida Reps. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D) and Cory Mills (R), who are both accused of violating campaign finance laws, among other crimes.
“If they’re doing this s‑‑, they need to go,” said Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.).
The debate began Tuesday, when the ethics committee is scheduled to make disciplinary recommendations in the case of Scherphilus-McCormick, who is accused of stealing millions of dollars in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds to finance her campaign. The Justice Department filed federal charges last November, and earlier this month the Ethics Subcommittee found that he violated 25 rules of congressional standards.
Cherfilus-McCormick has denied any wrongdoing, saying she is the victim of a partisan witch hunt by the Trump administration. Yet many Democrats are ready to push him out the door given the ethics findings.
“The Ethics Committee has the material,” Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (DN.M.) said. “So I think it needs to move quickly.”
“If the Ethics Committee brings it to the floor, we will move forward,” echoed another Democratic lawmaker, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue.
Yet those same Democrats are also calling for the ouster of Mills, who is the subject of a separate ethics investigation over allegations of “dating violence,” campaign finance violations and the use of his perch in Congress to steer business to arms and defense companies. (He has denied the allegations.)
Democrats are arguing the importance of equality: demanding the same consequences as crimes.
But the murky political dynamic underlying the debate is that, in a House with razor-thin margins, neither party wants to benefit the other by ousting only one of its own — a concern that supports the idea of pairing removal. That was the case with Swalwell and Gonzales, and now it’s the case with Cherfilus-McCormick and Mills.
The complication of that strategy is that the ethics committee is much further along with the Cherphilus-McCormick investigation, which formally began in December 2023, than the Mills investigation, which began in November 2025.
Ethics sanctions for Cherfilus-McCormick will be formalized on Tuesday. Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) has already filed his ouster motion. And Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has made it clear he thinks he will be removed soon.
“The facts are undisputed at this point, and so I believe it will be the consensus of this body that he should be expelled,” Johnson told reporters this week. He was less committed about Mills, only wanting to see more details from the ethics investigation.
The differing schedules have created dilemmas for Democratic leaders running on a midterm message of anti-corruption and wanting to see the findings of the Ethics Committee respected, a rare panel whose membership is evenly split between the parties. So far, they have declined to say how they will approach a vote to oust Cherphilus-McCormick.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told reporters Thursday, “I trust the members of the Ethics Committee who have worked and dug here and respect their decision.” “We will respond when they come up with something.”
However, Democrats are also pushing hard to ensure that, if Cherfilus-McCormick is fired, Mills is treated the same.
“Why are we waiting so long for Corey Mills?” Leger Fernandez asked. “It’s sexual assault that he’s been accused of, and there seem to be incredibly credible reports. Let’s get that right in front of us.”
Leger Fernandez, head of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, joined Luna in leading the charge to oust Swalwell and Gonzales before resigning. She suggested she was prepared to support Sherphilus-McCormick’s removal based on the ethics recommendations, but also wanted assurances that she would have the opportunity to vote on Mills’ removal even though the two proposals were not directly linked.
“I don’t know if they should come together, [but] They need to come up,” she said. “And they need to come up fast. Because we are tired of it. “
The debate has led lawmakers from both parties to express frustration at the pace of ethics panels and call for reforms to speed up the process.
“They need morale reform and, like, get rid of all that, change the chair, all of it,” Luna said. “I don’t want to prevent any due process from happening, but I think it needs to be accelerated.”
Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.), chairman of the Ethics Committee, has sided with the panel, saying the investigations the group undertakes can be so complex in nature that they take months or years to complete.
“I promise the American people and the members of this body that the members of the ethics committee — the investigative staff, the investigative staff of the committee — we are working diligently to move these issues forward as quickly as possible,” he said.
He declined to comment on the timeline of Mills’ investigation.
Mills, for his part, is well aware of the uproar surrounding his conduct. But he has maintained his innocence, never being arrested after a police investigation into a physical altercation between him and a girlfriend in Washington. In the same vein, he described other episodes under investigation – including revenge porn allegations that led to an ex-girlfriend getting a restraining order as a “bad breakup”.
“It’s just interesting, to see how you’re guilty of being charged against the way the rule of law actually works,” Mills told NewsNation, The Hill’s broadcast partner in Washington.
Still, it’s not just Democrats who are eyeing Mills’ ouster. Rep. Nancy Mays (R.S.C.), an outspoken advocate for abused women, has been pushing a resolution to censure Mills for months, and is now calling for his resignation or ouster. And the idea seems to be gaining traction, especially among GOP women.
“The thing that worries me the most is the accusation of assaulting a woman,” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) said. “That’s very awkward.”
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