Eric Swalwell, the California congressman who resigned on April 14 amid allegations of sexual misconduct, got his start in politics in College Park, where he was the first University of Maryland (UMD) student liaison to the city council in 2002.
Swalwell, a Democrat and one-time presidential candidate, has admitted to “mistakes in judgment” but has said claims of rape by two women and sexual misconduct by multiple others are “flat false. They are absolutely false. They did not happen. They have never happened.”
In a video he posted on X on April 10, Swalwell, who also dropped his campaign for governor of California, suggested that the allegations are political and pointed to his record as a prosecutor who “went to court on behalf of victims, particularly on behalf of sexual assault victims.”
Swalwell, a 2003 UMD graduate, earned his law degree in 2006 from the UMD School of Law, now known as the Francis King Carey School of Law in Baltimore.
During his time in College Park, Swalwell held a vice president position on the Student Government Association and collaborated with then-City Councilmember Eric Olson to create a student position on the city council.
Olson, who served as a city councilmember from 1997 to 2006, is in his fourth term as a member of the Prince George’s County Council. The city’s student liaison position still exists, held this school year by UMD public policy major Nick DiSpirito. Public policy and computer engineering student Amira Abujuma is the deputy student liaison.
Alex Tobin, a former UMD student who served as student liaison in 2019, told The Diamondback, UMD’s student newspaper, that year that the creation of the liaison position was a catalyst in bettering the relationship between the college and the city.
“His biggest legacy is that it worked,” The Diamondback quoted Tobin as saying about Swalwell in 2019. “We’ve seen the relationship between students, long-term residents and the university increase over the past 10 years. We’re in a good place now; we have a working relationship, we trust each other, we collaborate, and that’s in large part because of the student liaison position.”
Swalwell arrived in College Park in 2001 after an injury ended his Division I soccer career at Campbell University in North Carolina, where he had a full scholarship. His transfer coincided with a number of student protests that began when Duke University upset the Terrapins men’s basketball team in the Final Four. That rally, which included multiple fires on city streets near campus, caused approximately $500,000 worth of damage to private and public property and was followed by several others throughout the school year.
Those incidents prompted Swalwell to work with Olson to create the liaison position, according to The Diamondback.
Fifteen years later, The Diamondback quoted Olson, who called Swalwell “down to earth. … Even when he’s on the national stage, he doesn’t forget his roots.”
Olson added: “He was really all about bringing the community together, bridging the community and student divide. I was really glad to see that. He had the right perspective; he was well-respected by community members as well as students. … I knew he would be on the national stage at some point.”
In the same 2017 article, Swalwell said the experience taught him how to interact with elected officials.
“I was taken seriously and I had to act serious,” Swalwell told the newspaper. “You’re now at the table with truly adults, elected officials, and you can’t just take potshots from the gallery. You actually have to roll up your sleeves and work on the issues.”
After law school, Swalwell returned to his native California, where he worked as a prosecutor and was elected to the local city council. He took his seat in Congress in 2012, unseating a 40- year Democratic incumbent.
Swalwell briefly campaigned for president between April and July 2019 as part of a crowded Democratic primary field.
As a member of Congress, Swalwell was a vocal critic of President Donald Trump. He threw his hat into the California gubernatorial race in November and was leading in the polls until his campaign effectively ended on April 10 when the San Francisco Chronicle published the first allegations of sexual misconduct from an unnamed former staffer. He officially suspended his campaign on April 13.