Former Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) has faced significant fallout after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct and rape. This series of allegations led to the collapse of his gubernatorial campaign and ultimately resulted in his resignation from Congress. Now, in Utah, another scandal has emerged involving a Democrat, although this one involves a lesbian.
Eva Lopez Chavez, a Salt Lake City councilmember and congressional candidate, has been accused of making unwanted sexual advances toward multiple women. Chavez has denied these allegations and even took a polygraph test to prove her innocence. But…the allegations:
Four people from Utah political circles — three of them elected officials — accuse Eva Lopez Chavez, a Salt Lake City Council member and Democratic congressional candidate, of restraining them during what they considered unwanted sexual advances.
Lopez Chavez, through attorney Greg Skordas, said nothing “inappropriate” occurred during her interactions with three of the people and the fourth alleged contact “never occurred.” She is “shocked by the allegations,” a statement from Skordas said. “She is prepared to address them in any forum. She stands ready to submit to a polygraph test regarding these various allegations if requested.”
Victoria Petro, who is Lopez Chavez’s fellow City Council member; Maggie Regier, who worked on Stan Penfold’s mayoral campaign in 2019; Hoang Nguyen, who is now a state representative; and Jen Plumb, now a state senator, described their allegations in interviews with The Salt Lake Tribune. Each person said their allegations arose in social settings before Lopez Chavez joined the City Council in 2023.
Petro, Regier and Nguyen said they told others at the time, which The Tribune confirmed.
None of the four reported the interactions to police or spoke about them publicly until now. They said they decided to come forward, in part, because of Lopez Chavez’s candidacy for Congress in Utah’s new 1st District and after her reaction to newly disclosed online posts that fellow candidate Nate Blouin made between 2009 and 2015, including statements that minimized sexual assault.
In her statement in response to Blouin’s posts, Lopez Chavez described herself as a survivor of domestic violence and sexual assault and said Blouin should drop out of the race. Leadership, she said, is “defined by integrity and consistency — especially in how we treat women and respond to harm.”
In September 2022, Petro said, she and other council members went to a party after the wedding of a former council member.
At the event, Petro alleges, Lopez Chavez grabbed her by the throat, “pushed me back against a pillar so that my back was against the wall and told me, ‘The only reason I still f— men is because a woman hasn’t shown me what I really want.’”
State Sen. Jen Plumb, D-Salt Lake City, alleges Lopez Chavez pushed her against a wall at a friend’s birthday party in November 2022.
“It absolutely was a sexual advance. She leaned into me, grabbed onto my a–, got up in my face and said in my ear, ‘You’re sure you’re straight?’” Plumb said. “I just pushed her away. Come on. Knock it off.”
Nguyen, who is now a state representative, said Lopez Chavez attended a campaign event for Plumb in the Avenues neighborhood of Salt Lake City in 2022. As Nguyen was leaving the party, she said, Lopez Chavez asked for a ride to her car.
After she drove a few blocks, Nguyen said, Lopez Chavez told her to pull over — which she did, believing they had arrived at her car. “Next thing I know she has leaned over and she’s on top of me, holding my shoulders down,” Nguyen said in an interview.
“I said, ‘What are you doing?’ And she said, ‘Kiss me,’” Nguyen said. “She said, ‘I’m not going to get off you until you kiss me.’ I gave her a peck and she got off.”
For sure, another big, fat Democrat mess. Of course, none of what’s being alleged rises to the level of Swalwell’s alleged transgressions; he was accused of rape twice. But look, you cannot behave this way toward people. And let’s be honest, if Chavez were a man, then no doubt there would be an assault investigation already underway.
Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman broke with Democratic Party leadership this week, signaling his support for voter identification laws, saying he does not view showing ID to vote as unreasonable.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and almost all Senate Democrats have turned down the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. This bill, which would protect the integrity of elections, passed the House earlier this year but has stalled in the U.S. Senate.
Schumer has called the bill “Jim Crow 2.0” because he thinks it would keep people from voting instead of making elections safer. But Fetterman, who has repeatedly disagreed with his party’s messages and positions, pushed back against Schumer’s framing of the bill.
“I would never refer to the SAVE Act as like Jim Crow 2.0 or some kind of mass conspiracy. But that’s part of the debate that we were having here in the Senate right now. And I don’t call people names or imply that it’s something gross about the terrible history of Jim Crow,” Fetterman told Fox News’ Kayleigh McEnany.
The bill would require voters to present photo identification before casting ballots, require proof of citizenship in person when registering to vote, and mandate states remove non-citizens from voter rolls.
Fetterman would not say whether he supports the bill outright. However, he noted that “84% of Americans have no problem with presenting IDs to vote.”
“So it’s not like a radical idea,” Fetterman said. “It’s not something — and there already are many states that show basic IDs. So that’s where we are in the Senate.”
Right now, there aren’t enough votes to get past the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster limit.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) is urging Republicans to pursue a dramatic procedural shift to pass the SAVE America Act — by using budget reconciliation to bypass a Democratic filibuster and approve the bill with a simple majority.
Under current plans, Senate Majority Leader John Thune has scheduled the SAVE America Act for consideration as standard legislation, meaning it would require 60 votes to invoke cloture and overcome a filibuster. With Republicans holding 53 seats, at least seven Democrats would need to join them.
Kennedy argues that approach is unnecessary. Speaking on the Senate floor, Kennedy said Republicans should attempt to pass the measure through reconciliation — a parliamentary process created under the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 that allows certain budget-related legislation to pass with just 50 votes plus the vice president.
That means, if structured properly, the bill could pass with unified Republican support and a tie-breaking vote from Vice President JD Vance.
“That’s how we passed the one big, beautiful bill,” Kennedy said, referencing prior GOP legislation enacted over Democratic opposition. He also noted that Democrats used reconciliation in 2021 to pass the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan on a party-line vote.
Kennedy acknowledged that reconciliation is not simple.
“Anything you propose through reconciliation has to be paid for. We can find the money,” he said. “And anything you pass through reconciliation has to conform with the contours of the Budget Control Act. We call that giving a provision a Byrd bath.”
The so-called Byrd Rule limits reconciliation to provisions directly tied to federal spending, revenue, or the debt limit. Measures considered “extraneous” — meaning their budgetary impact is merely incidental to policy changes — can be struck by the Senate parliamentarian.
“Our parliamentarian decides what passes muster under the Budget Control Act and what doesn’t,” Kennedy said.
He urged Republican leadership to enlist legal experts to draft a version of the SAVE Act that could survive what he described as the “Byrd bath.”
“We have yet to try going to these smart lawyers … and saying, ‘Craft us a SAVE Act that will pass muster under the Budget Control Act and can be blessed by the parliamentarian,’” Kennedy said.
The SAVE America Act, supported by President Trump, would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, mandate photo identification at polling places, and restrict mail-in ballots to specific circumstances such as military service, illness, disability, or travel.
Conservatives argue the bill is essential to restoring public trust in elections. Critics say documented cases of non-citizen voting are rare and warn that stricter requirements could burden eligible voters.
Frustration among Republican activists has grown as the bill faces procedural hurdles. Last year, when the Senate parliamentarian ruled against a Medicaid-related provision in a separate GOP bill, some conservative leaders criticized the unelected official’s influence over legislative outcomes.
Kennedy stopped short of calling for rule changes or removal of the parliamentarian, instead emphasizing that the Senate should test the limits of reconciliation before conceding defeat.