Arizona’s attorney general is suing to force the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, to swear in Adelita Grijalva, a Democrat who won a congressional special election in September.
Grijalva was elected on 23 September in the southern Arizona district that her father, Raúl Grijalva, held until his death earlier this year.
Kris Mayes, the Democratic attorney general in Arizona, had promised to sue if Johnson would not let Grijalva get started on her work. She sent a letter to Johnson on 14 October demanding he schedule a swearing-in within two days, which did not happen.
“By blocking Adelita Grijalva from taking her rightful oath of office, [Johnson] is subjecting Arizona’s seventh congressional district to taxation without representation. I will not allow Arizonans to be silenced or treated as second-class citizens in their own democracy,” Mayes said in a press release announcing the lawsuit.
Johnson has said he would seat Grijalva once the government reopens, but with Democrats and Republicans deadlocked, there is no sign that the shutdown – now the second-longest in US history – will end any time soon.
Grijalva, who has held local offices in Arizona for decades, went to Washington in early October, expecting to be sworn in and start her new job. Johnson has so far refused to schedule a swearing-in for her, depriving her of the ability to use her office or access parts of the Capitol designated for members of Congress without an escort.
“I want to get to work and I can’t,” Grijalva said in early October.
In a video on 16 October, Grijalva walks through her office at the Capitol and shows all the tasks she cannot do because she is not sworn in: she cannot print because she does not have a government email; she cannot access government-owned computers without an access code; and she does not have a budget to send flags to constituents.
“Yes, I have access to an office,” she said. “But it’s kind of like someone saying: here’s a car, and it doesn’t have an engine, gas or tires.”
Grijalva has said she believes Johnson is holding off on swearing her in because she wants to release the Epstein files. Although her presence would not give Democrats a majority in the House, it could tip the scales for a vote on the files. A legislative manoeuvre known as a discharge petition needs 218 signatures; it has 217 currently, and Grijalva said she would sign it.
Grijalva said in a statement: “It’s an unlawful breach of our constitution and the democratic process … Johnson cannot continue to disenfranchise an entire district and suppress their representation to shield this administration from accountability and block justice for the Epstein survivors.”
Grijalva has called on her supporters to sign a petition to demand she be sworn in. “The voters in southern Arizona elected Adelita Grijalva to Congress – but Republicans are delaying her swearing-in, blocking her from becoming the decisive 218th signature to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files,” the petition says.
Arizona’s senators, Democrats Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly, have tried to press Johnson on the swearing-in, confronting him earlier this month and asking why he would not seat her. Johnson blamed the government shutdown and called the idea that the Epstein files played a role “totally absurd”. He called the two senators “experts in red herrings and distraction”.
In a TV interview last week, Johnson called the Grijalva issue a “farce” and blamed Democrats for shutting down the government. He said she still could do her job and access her office despite the lack of official ceremony.
