Republican Representative Tony Gonzales of Texas announced on Monday that he will retire from Congress, days after acknowledging a sexual relationship with a staff member who later died by suicide and as pressure mounted from colleagues across party lines for his removal.

In a brief social media post, Gonzales wrote: "There is a season for everything and God has a plan for us all. When Congress returns tomorrow, I will file my retirement from office. It has been my privilege to serve the great people of Texas." He gave no further details on the timing or mechanics of his departure, and his spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for clarification.

The three-term congressman from Texas had already announced he would not seek re-election after the House Ethics Committee opened a bipartisan investigation into his conduct. The committee was examining whether Gonzales had engaged in sexual misconduct toward a member of his staff and whether discriminatory practices had occurred. Under House ethics rules, members of Congress are prohibited from engaging in sexual relationships with employees under their supervision. The staffer in question, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles, 35, died by suicide in September 2025 at her home in Uvalde, Texas. After her death, her husband shared text messages with Texas media outlets that allegedly showed Gonzales requesting intimate photographs from Santos-Aviles, with her at one point telling him he was going "too far." Gonzales denied any connection to her death and accused a lawyer representing her widower of attempting to extort him — a claim the attorney rejected, stating he was pursuing a legitimate claim under the Congressional Accountability Act, a federal law governing workplace conduct on Capitol Hill.

Gonzales's announcement came hours after Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell of California said he too would resign from Congress, following separate allegations of sexual assault and misconduct by a former staffer. Representative Teresa Leger Fernández, a Democrat, had introduced a resolution to expel both men, while Republican Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, who had been leading expulsion efforts against Swalwell, said she would also vote to remove Gonzales.

The parallel departures of two sitting members of Congress over allegations of sexual misconduct with staff underscore ongoing concerns about workplace culture and accountability in the U.S. legislature. Both cases have renewed scrutiny of the mechanisms available to Congress to police the conduct of its own members, and of how the institution handles complaints made by employees who hold far less institutional power than those they serve.