News shakes you differently when scandal touches your own representative — the sincere man who shook your hand at youth council meetings and welcomed you with a hug at a rally. It’s no longer just another political story scrolling past; it becomes personal.
Rep. Eric Swalwell, my former congressman, illustrates this tension. According to the most recent reporting by The Washington Post, multiple women — including a former staffer — have accused him of sexual misconduct. Separately, as reported by The New York Times and other outlets, the Manhattan district attorney’s office is opening an investigation regarding a sexual assault allegation from a former staffer. Allegations he “categorically denies [took] place”.
For my congressional district, my family, my community, and my fellow colleagues who worked with me under his name, these allegations are an immense betrayal. Swalwell reveals a vulnerability in the California government: officials who build their reputations on reform and accessibility can, in some cases, abuse their given powers for their cynical tastes.
California is not suffering a scandal problem; rather, it is experiencing a betrayal problem, one that data reveals with damning clarity. California has been experiencing an unprecedented cascade of high-profile misconduct. Since 2017, multiple state legislators have resigned following sexual harassment allegations; from congressional representatives, city council members, and Sacramento staffers, this exposure of misconduct has violated the trust of those they claim to represent.
This type of scandal is not random; it follows a visible template. Progressive officials begin by crafting their careers championing reform rhetoric and positioning themselves as the new-age alternatives to outdated political practices. They make themselves openly accessible and create specific institutional channels — youth councils, community boards, mentorship programs — that promise power sharing but in reality preserve existing hierarchical control. Rather than fostering an environment of genuine civic engagement, these structures become mechanisms for exploitation. When abuses surface, institutional responses typically prioritize protecting the system itself rather than protecting vulnerable people. Most recently, staffers in Swalwell’s district office reported power imbalances and fear of retaliation. Additionally, Sacramento’s pattern of legislative aides experiencing harassment within mentorship structures is designed to appear progressive. Californians are watching the weaponization of “access” and “reform” language to concentrate power.
The lasting impact does not just lie with the scandals themselves; rather, it’s the generational damage that they cause. Young voters have become more disillusioned with government, and that disillusionment is affecting participation and loyalty over time. Catalist’s 2024 analysis showed how voters under 30 moved away from Democrats more sharply than any other age group. UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies reported that young voters were growing more fatalistic about the government’s ability to solve major problems. Taken together, the evidence suggests that when institutions fail to earn trust, especially during repeated political misconduct, young people are less likely to stay engaged in campaign work, even though those institutions depend on their participation.
During California’s 2024 election, reporting found the youth vote shifted right, even as experts pointed to lower turnout among younger voters, and a USC study later found that eligible California voters ages 18-24 saw a turnout decline of 7.7 percentage points between 2020 and 2024. In a macro-view, UC Davis researchers have documented how there are structural barriers for young Californians to vote and participate fully in civic life.
After witnessing our friendly neighborhood politicians being anything but civil and representative, disengagement is a logical response. When officials elected on reform platforms and civic engagement replicate the corrupt practices they opposed, young people learn that electoral politics do not and will not produce any change. The national response is and has always been withdrawal — not cynicism, but risk assessment.
There is a crucial distinction between cynicism and risk assessment. Cynicism dismisses the entire system as corrupt and therefore worthless, while rational calculation recognizes the failures of an institution and concludes that investment of trust and time is risky. One is apathy, while the other is judgment. Young people making these calculations are not wrong; they have watched institutional response to these scandals prioritize damage control over accountability. Especially after the election cycles in 2016, they’ve watched how performative reform — ethics policies, oversight committees, sensitivity training—have become the pattern. Swalwell himself had called for believing sexual assault survivors during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, a hypocrisy that crystallizes the gap between progressive rhetoric and actual practice.
Eric Swalwell at a press conference | Image Source: Getty Images
My experience of this system is firsthand. As an intern working in Swalwell’s district office, I was not skeptical; I was inspired. For me, the representative was offering real democracy by creating spaces for young people like myself to participate in governance. And I was learning how good governance works, from logging constituent casework to listening to my fellow constituents about real problems; I was helping my own community. Learning that this same official allegedly used his power to assault women in the very office I worked in didn’t just damage my faith in him; it damaged my faith in the entire system. When someone you believe is proven to be untrustworthy, you don’t just overhaul your opinion of them; you overhaul your understanding of the institution that empowered them and failed to constrain them.
Eric Swalwell at a committee hearing | Image Source: Greg Nash
What makes this a California government crisis, not just a Swalwell scandal, is how the pattern appears across multiple levels of government. In California, cases in recent years have involved Sacramento legislators, congressional delegations, and politicians in Oakland, the Bay Area, and Los Angeles. Progressive officials have been exposed for the very abuses they claimed to oppose, from corruption to sexual abuse. The problem isn’t the lack of rules. California has had #MeToo reckonings and ethics reforms. The problem is that these reforms have been mostly performative, by only addressing individual scandals while leaving underlying power structures intact.
California can continue the cycle of periodic high-profile scandals followed by performative reform, leading to deeper youth disengagement and institutional decay, or it can undertake a serious reckoning with its power structures and the gap between its progressive image and actual practices. Independent oversight bodies separate from legislative self-policing, not advisory committees chaired by politicians. Mandatory reporting for misconduct with genuine legal protections for reporters. Real limits on discretionary power so individual officials cannot monopolize access to vulnerable people. Institutionalized constituent services that don’t depend on individual politicians’ goodwill or access. External audits of workplace culture in political offices are comparable to university Title IX reviews. Most importantly: a cultural shift that prioritizes protecting vulnerable people over protecting powerful ones. Distinguishing genuine power-sharing from performative engagement and making accountability the norm, not the exception.
I’m still a constituent. I’m still a UC Berkeley student interested in politics. I’m still skeptical, but not cynical. Skepticism can drive demands for accountability and systemic change. Cynicism drives people away entirely. The California government has earned the skepticism of its young people through repeated betrayals. The question now is whether it can rebuild the trust it has systematically destroyed.
Featured Image Source: Etienne Laurent—AFP/Getty Images