Anna Paulina Luna a warrior for justice against her congressional colleagues’ wrongdoing

U.S. Reps. Tony Gonzales and Eric Swalwell are both voluntarily stepping down from Congress after each faced sex scandals, and that’s thanks in no small part to the efforts of U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna.

Swalwell has been accused by four women of various degrees of impropriety ranging from rape to sending unwanted explicit text messages. Gonzales is accused of coercing a member of his staff into a sexual relationship.

Their voluntary resignations, offered in rapid succession Monday, mean expulsion votes won’t happen. And there was one member of Congress in particular who made sure inappropriate conduct didn’t go unaddressed: Luna.

Plenty of people called on both men to resign. But Luna called for Gonzales to resign before most, and long before accusations surfaced about Swalwell.

That’s significant because, unlike Swalwell, Luna and Gonzales are both Republicans. That means she called on him to resign despite the impacts it would have on a narrowly divided House.

Republicans had a mere three-seat majority in the House. Had Swalwell not turned out to also be a creep, a Gonzales resignation would have narrowed the GOP majority to just two. With Swalwell’s resignation, the party maintains its three-member advantage.

That she was willing to call for Gonzales’ resignation even before Swalwell’s many indiscretions came to light proves Luna is less concerned with being politically expedient and more concerned with doing what’s right.

Luna posted at least two comments to X condemning Gonzales directly, one of them declaring she would vote for expulsion. In another post, she directly called out the need to buck partisanship when basic human decency was on the line.

“I don’t care what the party affiliation is, if they are corrupt and engaging in illegal activity in Congress I’m going to vote to expel them. It is time Congress has a good house cleaning,” Luna wrote on April 11.

And this isn’t the first time Luna has taken political risk in search of doing what’s right. She has also been an outspoken champion for releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files. Despite being a close ally to President Donald Trump, Luna publicly called for former Attorney General Pam Bondi to release the files and voted to force their release. Last Summer, Luna posted on X that “the American people deserve to know truth ref. Epstein, regardless of who it impacts.”

Like her or not, Luna has consistently put her neck on the line in furtherance of her values. Sometimes that is partisan policymaking, but others, it’s just holding bad actors — in this case accused sexual abusers and those who are complicit in their actions — accountable.

With Swalwell, the most recent politician to be called out for despicable behavior, the tide appears to be turning. It was no surprise that Republicans immediately called for his ouster — and for him to drop out of the California Governor’s race, which he did — but Democrats were also lining up to condemn Swalwell’s behavior and demand he be held accountable. Numerous Democrats withdrew support from Swalwell immediately after allegations surfaced.

That’s the way it should be, and it seems that we have Luna to thank for setting the tone — at least in part.

So whether you agree with her politics or not, now is the time to recognize a warrior for justice regardless of political leanings. I for one appreciate anyone who stands up to abusers, especially those who do so when it could negatively impact them.