The House is set to vote on censuring Rep. Chuck Edwards over sexual harassment findings just nine weeks before Election Day, and he is far from the only lawmaker facing misconduct allegations this session.

Edwards, a North Carolina Republican, faces a formal censure vote Tuesday after the House Ethics Committee determined he violated chamber rules on sexual harassment and recommended the punishment. The vote arrives as lawmakers return from a five-week summer recess to a Capitol clouded by a bipartisan string of misconduct cases that neither party's leadership has moved aggressively to address.

The Ethics Committee's findings center on Axios reporting that Edwards singled out two female staffers in their 20s for what the outlet described as "special attention." Edwards has resisted calls to resign and circulated a 22-page letter to fellow lawmakers this month arguing the committee made an "extraordinary leap" in concluding his conduct amounted to sexual harassment.

Two sources told Axios the letter was not well received.

Edwards abandoned his reelection campaign this month, but he remains in office, and the censure vote will force every House member to go on the record.

Johnson lets the vote proceed without a whip count

Speaker Mike Johnson's leadership team is not whipping the Edwards vote. GOP leaders are leaving individual Republicans to decide for themselves whether to censure their colleague, a hands-off approach Johnson has adopted more broadly when confronted with misconduct allegations inside his conference. His default posture has been to defer to the Ethics Committee rather than intervene directly.

That posture has drawn quiet frustration from some corners of the Republican conference. One unnamed House Republican put it bluntly to Axios:

"Sexual harassment is sexual harassment and deserves to be disciplined accordingly. While most of us are actually fighting for the American people, he was busy creeping on his staff."

Johnson has faced a gauntlet of procedural and political challenges this session. He recently bet on reconciliation to push the SAVE America Act past the Senate, a gambit that reflected the difficulty of managing a narrow majority with competing internal demands.

Rep. Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican, told Axios he remains undecided on whether to censure Edwards, and suggested the institution itself has forfeited its standing to police member behavior.

"We've got several members that are messing around, obviously, and people know it. And I just don't see Congress being the moral barometer for anything really right now."

Burchett's candor points to a deeper problem than one member's misconduct. The Edwards case is not isolated. It sits atop a pile of allegations spanning both parties that the House has struggled to address with any consistency or speed.

Edwards is not the only lawmaker under an ethics cloud

The Ethics Committee opened an investigation this month into Rep. Max Miller, an Ohio Republican, over domestic violence allegations that became public this month. Miller has denied the allegations. When Johnson was asked Monday whether he supports Miller's reelection campaign, he said yes, offering no further public comment on the matter.

Rep. Cory Mills, a Florida Republican, remains under an active Ethics Committee investigation over allegations of domestic abuse, stolen valor, and financial misconduct. Mills denies all the allegations. He lost his primary this month, which removes him from the next Congress but does not resolve the pending investigation into his conduct while in office.

The fractured state of the GOP conference has been visible on multiple fronts. House conservatives ended a weeks-long floor blockade only after Johnson agreed to pair a voter ID bill with spending legislation, a standoff that illustrated how thin his margin for error has become on any contested vote.

On the Democratic side, the Ethics Committee launched an investigation this month into Rep. Jimmy Gomez of California over allegations of sexual misconduct. And Rep. Eric Swalwell, also a California Democrat, resigned this year amid sexual misconduct allegations. Swalwell faces accusations of sexual assault, which he denies. The FBI raided his D.C. home this month and stopped him at an airport to seize his electronic devices.

Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican, also resigned this year amid misconduct allegations. Gonzales admitted to an affair with a staffer who later died by suicide.

Two sitting lawmakers, Gonzales and Swalwell, have now resigned this year under the weight of sexual misconduct allegations. That figure does not include the members still serving while under active investigation.

Bipartisan women's caucuses plan a legislative response

Democratic and Republican women's caucuses are expected to unveil a legislative package in the coming weeks aimed at tackling sexual misconduct on Capitol Hill. The details of the package have not been made public, but the bipartisan effort signals that at least some lawmakers believe the current system for policing member conduct is inadequate.

Whether that effort gains traction depends in part on how leadership in both parties handles the cases already in front of them. Johnson's decision to let the Edwards vote proceed without a whip operation means the outcome will reflect individual members' judgments rather than a coordinated leadership position, a choice that avoids a messy internal fight but also avoids accountability at the top.

Johnson has navigated a series of internal pressures this session, from merging a voter ID bill with defense legislation to break a House standoff, to managing the fallout after his chief of staff departed for the private sector. The misconduct crisis adds a different kind of strain, one that cuts across ideology and lands squarely on questions of institutional credibility.

Some Democrats have discussed forcing the House to take action against Miller, including a potential expulsion push. That effort would raise the stakes considerably and test whether either party is willing to impose consequences beyond what the Ethics Committee recommends.

Nine weeks out, voters get to watch Congress police itself

The censure vote arrives nine weeks before Election Day, a timeline that guarantees the misconduct issue will shadow both parties through the fall campaign. Edwards dropped his reelection bid, but the vote itself forces every member to take a public position on whether the Ethics Committee's findings warrant formal punishment.

Edwards' 22-page letter argued the committee overreached. His colleagues, by and large, were not persuaded. The vote Tuesday will show whether the House is willing to act on its own findings, or whether censure becomes another institutional gesture that lands somewhere between accountability and theater.

The broader pattern is harder to dismiss. Multiple members in both parties face allegations ranging from sexual harassment to domestic violence to financial misconduct. Two have already resigned. The FBI has raided a sitting Democrat's home. Ethics investigations are open in several directions at once. And leadership in both parties has largely deferred to process rather than exercising the kind of direct authority voters expect from people who hold the gavel.

When the people who create the rules cannot follow them, voters are entitled to wonder what the rules are for.