The House Ethics Committee said Monday it is reviewing allegations that Jimmy Gomez may have engaged in sexual misconduct, including inappropriate sexual contact with a House staffer. The panel said the matter could involve violations of the Code of Official Conduct, but it stressed that opening the review does not mean any rule was broken.
That disclosure put the Jimmy Gomez House Ethics Review at the center of a question that can move quickly inside the House and linger just as fast outside it: whether the conduct under review fits one of the chamber’s strict limits on member behavior. House ethics rules bar members from having sexual relations with their own staffers and from making unwelcome sexual advances or engaging in similar conduct with other House staffers, and the committee said it is looking at whether either rule was violated.
Gomez responded by saying he would cooperate with the probe and that he had made personal mistakes outside his marriage. He said his actions were consensual and had not violated the law or House Ethics rules, while adding that he was deeply sorry to his wife for the pain and embarrassment he had brought into their lives. He also said he took full responsibility and would work through the pain privately with his wife and family.
The dispute leaves the committee with a narrower but more consequential task than simply deciding whether an allegation was made. It must determine whether the conduct described amounts to misconduct under House rules, and if so, whether it involved sexual relations with Gomez’s own staff or unwelcome conduct involving another House staffer. Michael Guest and Mark DeSaulnier said the mere fact that the committee is investigating the allegations, and publicly disclosing the review, does not itself indicate that any violation has occurred.
The public disclosure comes after The New York Post reported this year that the allegation involved Gomez kissing a younger aide, and said the incident happened in 2023. That report identified the woman as a staffer for another Democratic congressman, which helps explain why the ethics committee’s review is now drawing attention beyond the usual Capitol Hill churn. Gomez is a married Democrat from Calif. who formed a Congressional Dads Caucus in 2023, a fact that now sits uncomfortably beside the personal-accountability language in his statement.
The committee said no other public comment will be made except in accordance with its rules, leaving the next step in private unless the panel decides otherwise. That matters because the House Ethics Committee is made up of equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats and is already handling several other ethics matters involving lawmakers this year, including a recent recommendation that the full House censure Rep. Chuck Edwards and an earlier Aug. 4 probe into Rep. Max Miller. The panel is also examining allegations involving Rep. Cory Mills, while Rep. Eric Swalwell and Rep. Tony Gonzales resigned this year amid ethics investigations. For Gomez, the immediate risk is not just the allegation itself but the possibility that the committee’s quiet review becomes a formal finding that changes how colleagues see him in the House.
