Rep. Nancy Mace is pushing two bills that would bar House members from sleeping with or living with their staffers, a direct response to a string of Capitol Hill sex scandals that have cost multiple lawmakers their seats.
The South Carolina Republican is expected to drop the legislation on Thursday, Fox News Digital reported. The first measure is a House resolution that would prohibit any House member from having a sexual relationship with any employee of the House of Representatives. The second bill would ban lawmakers from living with House employees, with a narrow exception for married couples who share a home.
Mace framed the bills as a long-overdue check on members who exploit the power gap between elected officials and the people who work for them. She pointed to a recent wave of misconduct cases, spanning both parties, that she said exposed a culture Capitol Hill has tolerated for too long.
Mace did not hold back about why she drafted the measures. In a statement to Fox News Digital, she laid out her case bluntly:
"If you're a member of Congress, your priorities should be serving your constituents and this country, not fooling around with staff."
She went further in a second statement, directing her message at male lawmakers in particular:
"Congress is not your personal dating pool. If you can't do your job without hitting on staff, find another job and leave the women you work with alone."
On the cohabitation ban, Mace argued the arrangement creates a conflict of interest that should have been addressed years ago:
"No staffer should ever be coming home at night to the person who signs their paycheck. It's inappropriate, it's a conflict of interest, and it should have been banned decades ago."
The bills arrive at a moment when Mace's own political standing has shifted considerably. She conceded earlier this year that her break with former President Trump over the Epstein files may have ended her political career as she knew it.
Mace's legislation follows a series of scandals that have touched Republicans and Democrats alike. The cases differ in severity, but the common thread is the same: elected officials entangled with the people who work under them on Capitol Hill.
Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican, resigned his seat after scrutiny mounted over an affair with a staff member who later died by suicide. The case drew intense attention and raised questions about how congressional offices handle relationships between bosses and subordinates.
Former Rep. Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat, left Congress after sexual misconduct and rape allegations derailed what had been a promising gubernatorial campaign. Swalwell denied those accusations but admitted to making unspecified "personal mistakes" in a public statement that also included an apology to his wife.
Sen. Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, became the latest member of Congress whose reported past relationships with Hill aides were made public. The New York Post reported that Gallego previously had sexual relationships with two House staffers. His defenders argued he would not have violated any rules because he was unmarried at the time and the staffers did not work directly for him.
That defense highlights exactly the gap Mace's bills aim to close. Under current House rules, there is no blanket prohibition on sexual relationships between members and staff, only patchwork norms and an ethics process that moves slowly when it moves at all. Gallego's allies essentially argued that what he did was permitted. Mace wants to make sure it isn't, going forward.
Meanwhile, Rep. Chuck Edwards, a North Carolina Republican, faces a House Ethics Committee probe over sexual harassment allegations, Axios reported. Edwards has denied the allegations. That investigation remains open.
The fallout from these cases has not been limited to the members directly involved. Trump backed Pamela Evette over Mace in the South Carolina governor's race earlier this year, a move tied to the broader clash over the Epstein files that reshaped several Republican primaries.
Mace is not alone in pushing for tighter guardrails. Several House Republicans have endorsed limits on relationships between members and staff, including Speaker Mike Johnson. Reps. Kat Cammack of Florida, Jeff Crank of Colorado, and Lisa McClain of Michigan have all backed the concept.
Cammack and Crank went a step further, introducing their own separate legislation imposing limits on lawmaker-staff conduct. The details of their bill were not specified in reporting on Mace's measures, but the parallel effort signals that the appetite for reform extends beyond a single member.
Speaker Johnson's endorsement of the broader principle carries particular weight. If House leadership is willing to back the idea in public, the question becomes whether it can clear the procedural hurdles that kill most internal reform efforts before they reach a vote.
Mace herself has navigated a turbulent stretch in Republican politics. After floating a Senate bid despite finishing last in a recent GOP primary, she has looked for ways to reassert herself on issues that cut across factional lines. Legislation targeting congressional misconduct fits that strategy, it is difficult for any member to publicly oppose a bill that says lawmakers should not sleep with the people who work for them.
Every major employer in the private sector learned this lesson years ago. Corporate America, the military, law enforcement agencies, and universities all adopted policies restricting or banning sexual relationships between supervisors and subordinates. The rationale is straightforward: when one person controls the other's paycheck, performance reviews, and career trajectory, genuine consent is compromised.
Congress exempted itself from that standard. Members set their own staff salaries, control hiring and firing, and operate with minimal oversight from human resources. A staffer who wants to report misconduct faces the same person who can end their career with a phone call.
Mace's bills would not solve every problem. A House resolution lacks the force of law, and enforcement would likely fall to the same Ethics Committee that has struggled to act decisively on existing complaints. But the legislation would at least establish a clear rule where none exists, and strip away the defense that members like Gallego's allies have used: that no rule was broken because no rule was on the books.
The broader political landscape around congressional accountability has shifted as well. The Senate's unanimous vote opposing any pardon for convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell earlier this year showed that both parties feel pressure to take visible stands on sexual misconduct, at least when the political cost of inaction is high enough.
Whether that same pressure translates into votes for Mace's bills remains an open question. Reform proposals that target members' personal conduct have a long history of dying quietly in committee. The scandals that prompted them fade from the news cycle, leadership moves on, and the rules stay unchanged.
Several key questions remain unanswered. Mace's sex ban does not specify whether it covers only consensual relationships or extends to non-consensual conduct as well. The bill text has not been made public. And it is unclear whether the measures have been formally introduced or remain in the "expected" stage at the time of reporting.
Any workplace in America that operated the way Congress does, no written policy, no real enforcement, and a long trail of misconduct, would face lawsuits, regulatory action, and public disgrace. Capitol Hill has avoided all three for decades. Mace's bills are a test of whether the institution is finally willing to hold itself to the same standard it imposes on everyone else.
