A largely ignored, but interesting, development has arisen in the upcoming California gubernatorial contest. It is a viable petition that has been filed with the California Secretary of State that could potentially see Rep. Eric Swalwell, contending for the Democratic nomination in the governor’s race, thrown off the 2026 ballot.
The legal case has been brought by California resident, documentarian, and indefatigable investigative reporter Joel Gilbert. Gilbert has been doing yeoman’s work for Gateway Pundit in researching and reporting on Swalwell’s apparent gross misrepresentations in various official documents that are shocking in their brazenness. When considered in light of his aspirations for still higher office, you have to be impressed by Swalwell’s chutzpah, a defining characteristic of politicians on the left.
As Gilbert has most recently reported, Swalwell has gone to the unusual, and until now inexplicable, length of having Google blur out the image of his current home in Washington, DC – an impressive duplex he had previously proudly posted photos of on social media. Perhaps, Gilbert suggests, Swalwell has taken this step in some delusional effort to obscure the fact that in filling out his mortgage documents for the Washington home, Swalwell listed it as his “primary residence,” despite being a congressional representative from the State of California.
A “primary” residence confers a lower interest rate on a mortgage loan than it does on a “secondary” residence. As Gilbert points out, if in fact Swalwell has his Washington, DC residence as his “primary” residence, that means he is not domiciled in the State of California, which in turn means that Swalwell is not eligible to run for governor of California.
The California state constitution is very explicit. As Gilbert notes, Article V, Section 2 of the California constitution states a person is eligible to run for Governor only if he is “a citizen of the United States and a resident of this State for 5 years immediately preceding the Governor’s election.”
As Gilbert explains, under California law, in order to be considered a “resident” of the state, one must have their “domicile” in the state. Gilbert notes that California Elections Code §349 states: “A domicile is the place where a person’s habitation is fixed and where they have the intention of remaining.” And, “At a given time, a person may have only one domicile.”
This is a problem, you see, for Mr. Swalwell. Either he is domiciled in California and falsely claimed in his mortgage loan documents that he is a permanent “resident” of Washington, DC, in which case it seems he’s guilty of mortgage loan fraud, or he is not domiciled in California and is ineligible to run for governor.
Given California’s history of producing some of the most odious American politicians in the last 40 years (which is saying something), you may ask yourself: Why do I care if California elects as governor a charlatan who makes false representations – either on mortgage loan documents or on California election certification documents?
The answer is: If we don’t call out and challenge politicians on evidence of wrongdoing found in publicly available documents, as Joel Gilbert has done, then we have no right to complain about them once they assume office and wreak havoc with the public’s money and trust.
Gilbert has gone to great lengths as a public service to the American people (and particularly the people of California) to unearth and extensively pore over documents in Eric Swalwell’s history, and then report on those findings in excellent articles, available here, here, here, here, here and here, among others. One such astonishing thing that Gilbert uncovered was that Representative Swalwell from California has NO California address. On his Candidate Intention Statement to run for the governorship of California, where the candidate’s home address is required to be listed, Swalwell listed the address of his attorneys at Greenberg, Traurig in Sacramento. Bear in mind that Swalwell, a lawyer himself, signed this document under penalty of perjury!
I highly recommend reading Gilbert’s articles contained in the links above in order to appreciate how the whole Swalwell enterprise rises to the level of tragicomedy, if nothing else. They offer a window into how utterly corrupt and cynical our elected governmental leaders are.
Gilbert, as an actual resident of California, has now gone a step further on behalf of his fellow Californians by filing a petition with the California Superior Court against the California Secretary of State to “compel Respondent Secretary of State to perform her ministerial duty to enforce the qualifications for Governor prescribed by the California Constitution and Elections Code, and to decline certification of an ineligible candidate.” Specifically, Gilbert “seeks an order prohibiting Respondent from certifying Eric Michael Swalwell as a Candidate for Governor of California for the 2026 election because Swalwell fails to satisfy the constitutional residency requirement and filed materially false candidate filings under penalty of perjury.”
Gilbert lays out the factual basis for his request in his petition, which can be viewed at www.swalwellisdisqualified.com.
It’s refreshing to see at least one Californian trying to hold this miscreant politician, who was investigated for two years by the House Ethics Committee for maintaining a long-term relationship with Christine Fang (aka, “Fang Fang”), a suspected Chinese intelligence honeypot asset, accountable. California, you can do so much better.
William F. Marshall has been an intelligence analyst and investigator in the government, private, and non-profit sectors for 40 years. He is a senior investigator for Judicial Watch, Inc., and has been a contributor to Townhall, American Thinker, Epoch Times, The Federalist, American Greatness, and other publications. His work has been featured on CBS News 48 Hours and NBC News Dateline. (The views expressed are the author’s alone, and not necessarily those of Judicial Watch.)