Swalwell OUT & SCOTUS Rules AGAINST California!

Breaking news in California’s race for Governor as Democrat frontrunner Eric Swalwell drops out of the race after being inundated with sexual assault claims, and what does this mean for his seat in Congress? Plus, we’ve got some very important updates to cover on court rulings that we’ve discussed in the last few months, as the highest court in the land weighs in on matter directly affecting California.

Swalwell is OUT!

First order of business – we HAVE to talk about what is going on with Eric Swalwell! Just a couple of weeks ago, I covered the top five WORST candidates currently in California’s race for Governor, and in the number one spot was Eric Swalwell. While I was not planning to talk about the Governor’s race again for the next few weeks, there have been so many breaking developments that I thought were just too important to ignore.

What exactly has happened? Last week, allegations of sexual misconduct and abuse started circulating from multiple women about Swalwell. Some of these were unwanted sexual advances, but the accusations went as far as to allege rape. He of course came out immediately denying these accusations, but Swalwell himself was a vocal proponent of the #MeToo movement and a public supporter of the “believe all women” era – which makes it pretty hard to then ask people to believe YOU over multiple women who in the past you would have advocated for others to listen to. From there, things snowballed, and there was really no ability to stop it.

Everyone – from the right and the left – came out against Swalwell and called for him to drop out of the race. Top supporters of his gubernatorial campaign like Nancy Pelosi and Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries pulled their support entirely. This continued to pick up steam as over 50 of his own staffers called for him to resign from Congress. As a result, on Sunday Swalwell announced he was suspending his campaign, and by Monday he resigned from his seat in Congress altogether.[1]

Now, I do want to make a few quick comments about the nature of the mob here, because there are a lot of mixed motives at play. Are some people denouncing Swalwell because they genuinely believe all the allegations against him and are outraged at his vile, and potentially criminal behavior? Sure. At the same time, there are people who don’t like his politics who may be extra quick to call for him to resign because they didn’t like him in the first place. And then there are people in his own party, who have likely known about these allegations for years, who may see it as politically expedient for them to publicly call for his ouster now that things are coming to light...even though they didn’t call for it in the previous years and even endorsed his recent campaign. Whatever the motives, there should be a full hearing of all the allegations and claims, and where Swalwell is accused of criminal behavior, he should absolutely receive a fair trial.

We don’t want to dismiss or silence victims, but at the same time we don’t want to support the outrage mob. It’s hard to find that balance in a world of extremes. The fact that his downfall happened so swiftly may not be just without evidence – or it may be just based on the evidence we do already have. But we must be careful to apply the same standards across the board to politicians we don’t like, in the same way we do for politicians we like.

If Steve Hilton or Chad Bianco had allegations suddenly levied against them, we would likely want to see some evidence. We would assume innocent until proven guilty. We would call for a full investigation and fair trial. And so too should we with Swalwell. A key difference here, which we cannot ignore, is that there does seem to be strong evidence, including video evidence, that the allegations are not unfounded, and that at least some of them appear true. So, do I think it’s completely unfair to call for him to drop out? No. But do I think it’s likely because of reasons beyond just moral outrage? Yes, and that is a dangerous game.

This is why a person’s policies matter most. I already have said Swalwell is a bad candidate, and I can stand by that regardless of the all the other noise. Why? Because Swalwell has no beliefs, he has no policy ideas for how to improve our state. His whole campaign was positioned against President Trump, and all the policies he did support have been tried and failed in our state already. At the same time, we have better candidates. We have candidates in the race who have better ideas, who will pursue policies to address the problems our state is faced with – and so we should vote for the best candidate.

Voting is a mix of priorities. I don’t think it’s fair to focus entirely on a person’s moral character and personality – even if I myself would prefer a Christian with a perfectly clean life. At the same time, character does still have an impact, and it can’t be entirely thrown out the door. The balance comes with trying to vote for the best possible option in front of you. Sometimes we are given multiple good choices. Sometimes we are choosing between the lesser of two evils. Either way, we just must do our best to restrain as much evil as possible. 

So, this matters for us because this obviously shakes up the Governor’s race here in California. Swalwell had consolidated between 10-13% of voter support, depending on the poll and the week, and in a race that is fractured among so many candidates, that is not insignificant. That support will inevitably go somewhere else – and it could either split up so much in several directions that it continues to even Democrats out, or it could go in majority to one or two candidates, boosting them above the Republicans currently in the lead. It seems that Katie Porter could stand to gain a significant portion of the voters, especially given that she is a woman and Swalwell’s supporters may feel disenfranchised given the sexual nature of his misconduct and abuse. At the same time, Tom Steyer, who we have yet to talk about in depth on this show, had cut attack ads specifically against Swalwell before he dropped from the race, and has been rising as of lately in the polls.[2]

But the biggest question here is timing. Swalwell’s nature and misconduct has largely been an open secret. Journalists and members of the media are coming out saying they’ve known about Swalwell and his misgivings for years. One political journalist went on the record saying:

“Shortly after being elected to Congress in 2013, his behavior towards women was known by all levels of our local government and the Alameda County Democratic Party…I tried repeatedly to get the stories out. I can’t force women to speak out, and when they chose not to, I didn’t push. I also knew that Swalwell was known to threaten litigation."[3]

How in the world could it have just been known through several levels of government and wings of the Democratic Party that this man had potentially criminal behavior toward women…and he still ran for President in 2019, he was still elected to and served in Congress for over 13 years, and he was recently – not in the past – RECENTLY endorsed by 21 fellow Democrat members of Congress?[4] It seems here like Democrats were willing to hide the ball, so to speak, when it benefitted them – but when they realized that it wasn’t benefitting them to have the Governor’s race so split up among Democrats that the two frontrunners were Republicans, suddenly it was convenient to all pile against him. But that is all speculation, and regardless of timing Swalwell is clearly not the best option we have for a gubernatorial candidate, and would make a terrible leader for many reasons outside of his personal life – so I cry no tears over his exit.

So, stay tuned! Things are going to continue to change and shift, it’s just the nature of campaigns and elections. The polls today will not be the polls tomorrow, or next week, or in June – and the candidates may not all still be in the race by then either. It is most important of all that today and every day you be praying for our state, for our leadership, and for this election. For good leaders to rise up, for the people of our state to recognize and desire that good leadership, and for positive change to take place for the sake of the people who live here. Right now, that is all we can do, as well as stay informed about all the issues affecting our state.

SCOTUS Rules Against California

Which, speaking of issues affecting our state, the Swalwell news is not the only recent news affecting California! A few weeks ago, on the show we talked about recent, higher court victories for conservatives in our state. One of those was a ruling in favor of protecting parental rights, specifically regarding children transitioning at school.

If you’ll remember, back in 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1955, known as the SAFETY Act. This bill was incredibly controversial because, as I have mentioned and covered in depth before, it was the first state law to prohibit schools from requiring teachers to disclose changes in gender identity or pronouns by students to their parents.[5] It was touted by our state as a ban on “forced outings” of LGBTQ students to their parents. Proponents of the bill argued that students should be able to socially transition, change their name and pronouns, and even pursue gender-affirming care at schools, with the full knowledge of their peers and teachers, without telling their parents or without risk of others telling their parents. Gavin Newsom likes to say this bill doesn’t prohibit teachers from saying something to parents – but the reality of what this bill has done is normalize the expectation in schools for teachers that they do not disclose pertinent information to parents about their children, and if they do then that is a “forced outing” that could lead to harm and abuse.

Obviously, this is and has been a highly concerning bill. Advocates for parental rights have adamantly argued that it is not up to the teacher what information should or should not be told to parents – that parents are the ones responsible for raising their children and therefore they have a fundamental right to know what is going on in their child’s life and mental health, regardless of how the student or teacher perceive they might react. They have also pointed out the countless real life stories of vulnerable youth who were influenced by others in their school to the point of pursuing gender transition, and that because the parents were left in the dark for so long, by the time they found out, the child was removed from their care entirely, alleging abuse against them and giving them no time to work with their child and parent them as they see fit.

But, all of this started to crumble at the end of last year, because as I talked about a few weeks ago, District Judge Roger Benitez ruled in favor of protecting and restoring parental rights, putting an injunction in place to stop our state from enforcing AB 1955 on the basis that, “the rights of parents to direct the medical care and religious upbringing of their children long predate any proclaimed responsibility of the state over children in the United States.”[6] Which, is just so good and so true and it has felt like such a long battle to get to this point – so it was definitely a win! But this ruling wasn’t final, because there was still pushback, still legal channels that could undo his injunction, and so we had to wait for it to reach the highest court in the country – the Supreme Court.

And, my friends, that is exactly what happened! Well, kind of. The case wasn’t technically brought before the Supreme Court, but SCOTUS had to rule on whether the injunction could stay in place or not. Even so, at the beginning of March, the court released a preliminary ruling that said the plaintiffs at the heart of the legal battle were likely to prevail against the state of California because California’s policies, “substantially interfere with the ‘right of parents to guide the religious development of their children.” Furthermore, they ruled that these policies “cut out the primary protectors of children’s best interests: their parents,” and that parents have long had “primary authority with respect to ‘the upbringing and education of children,’” including “the right not to be shut out of participation in decisions regarding their children’s mental health.”[7]

SCOTUS’s ruling is not final – again – because this was a temporary decision about whether Judge Benitez’s injunction could stay in place while the case keeps moving.[8] But even though it’s temporary, the Supreme Court is already signaling how it sees this issue, and that signal matters because the ruling itself says the majority of the judges would rule in favor of the plaintiffs, against the state of California – AND that AB 1955 and similar policies cannot be enforced in our state. As lower courts tend to follow the Supreme Court’s direction, judges in future are likely more inclined to side with protecting parental rights, and if school districts don’t comply with the injunction, then there is legal basis to sue them – and likely win.

This is HUGE. We cannot pass over this! If you heard about AB 1955 and felt a deep anger, indignance, and sense of injustice about it – THIS is the answer! It has taken years, but faithful court battles over this terrible law are finally bringing us to a place of recognizing what is right – protecting parents’ ability to raise their children and keeping the family unit together rather than letting teachers assume the role of parents.

The Importance of Truth

Now, while we should be so happy about this decision, and celebrate all it will do in our state, I still have to point out a few details. Because while this is a huge win, I would argue that this is not far enough. If you read the ruling, you will see that the justices mainly make the argument about parental rights – meaning every parent has the primary responsibility to raise their children in accordance with their religious beliefs. That is a good thing, but that is not the only factor at play in this case. Why? Because the question at hand is actually not one primarily of parental rights, but of objective truth.

The reason California passed AB 1955 in the first place is primarily because our state wants to “protect” LGBTQ+ children who want to keep their gender identification and transition from their parents. Why would they want to facilitate that? Because they fundamentally believe that if a parent is not on board with the child’s change in sexual identity, that is wrong and could constitute abuse. So, our state sees it as their job to step in and keep that information from parents.

While the court is saying parents have the right to information, and the right to raise their children – it does not fundamentally define objective truth such that affirmation of biological reality is not abuse, and “gender-affirming” care is. But the problem is that one parent raising their child to the gender they were born with biologically is not morally the same as another parent raising their child to be a different gender than their biological sex. That is because objective truth exists – one is right, and one is wrong. And so, this issue shouldn’t even be an issue of religious freedom.

It isn’t a necessarily religious belief that humans are born as male or female, and that sex is unchanging. What has happened over the last few decades is that society has drifted away from accepting objective realities, and so instead, they have shifted to become protected under the umbrella of religious liberty. But this isn’t a matter of religious liberty – this is a matter of common sense, common decency, and biological fact. So, while I love the outcome of SCOTUS’ preliminary ruling – and there are a lot of good arguments made about parental rights that I do still agree with – we cannot pretend that this solves all our problems on this topic. We need to keep pressing on for truth and keep fighting for a society where it is non-controversial to say that the gender you were born with is good and cannot be altered regardless of how you feel. You don’t have to – and quite frankly you shouldn’t – see transgenderism as a personal choice between a parent, child, and their doctor. It instead is a choice against what is true – and we can never be in support of that. 

So, a lot of wild things at play in California politics lately – some good, some bad. But we see a throughline: the truth must always matter. It matters for our decision-making about who should lead our state, it matters for how we teach and raise the next generation, and it matters for shaping life and institutions around you. Because when truth is ignored, then as we are seeing unfold, everything else eventually starts to fall apart.

References:

[1] Moore, Elena. “Eric Swalwell Will Resign From Congress as He Faces Backlash Over Assault Allegations.” NPR, April 13, 2026. https://www.npr.org/2026/04/13/nx-s1-5784030/eric-swalwell-resigns-from-congress.

[2] Walters, Dan. “Here’s Who Benefits From Swalwell’s Downfall and the Shakeup of the California Governor Race,” CalMatters, April 13, 2026, https://calmatters.org/commentary/2026/04/swalwell-california-governor-race-benefit/.

[3] Womack, Cj. “California Reporter Claims Eric Swalwell’s Conduct ‘Was Known,’ Raises Questions About Local Support.” Fox News, April 12, 2026. https://www.foxnews.com/media/california-reporter-claims-eric-swalwells-conduct-was-known-raises-questions-about-local-support.

[4] Solender, Andrew. “Swalwell Loses All 21 of His Endorsements From Dem Colleagues.” Axios, April 11, 2026. https://www.axios.com/2026/04/11/eric-swalwell-endorsements-sexual-misconduct.

[5] Los Angeles County Office of Education. “California Becomes First State to Ban Forced Outing in Schools With the Signing of AB 1955: The SAFETY Act,” July 26, 2024. https://www.lacoe.edu/news/2024-07-26-california-first-state-ban-forced-outing-schools#:~:text=News%20&%20Announcements.%20Timely%20updates%20for%20families%2C,Signing%20of%20AB%201955:%20The%20SAFETY%20Act.

[6] Welsch, Quinn. “Judge Blocks California Schools From Enforcing Policy Preventing ‘forced Outing.’” Courthouse News Service, December 22, 2025. https://www.courthousenews.com/judge-blocks-california-schools-from-enforcing-policy-preventing-forced-outing/.

[7] Howe, Amy. “Court Sides With Parents in Dispute Over California Policies on Transgender Students.” SCOTUSblog, March 4, 2026. https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/03/divided-court-sides-with-parents-in-dispute-over-california-policies-on-transgender-students/#:~:text=The%20Supreme%20Court%20on%20Monday,children%20socially%20transitioned%20at%20school).

[8] Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo. “U.S. Supreme Court Emergency Ruling Affirms Parents’ Right to Receive Student Gender Identity Information,” n.d. https://www.aalrr.com/newsroom-alerts-4207.