Arizona AG Sues Over Delay In Adelita Grijalva’s Swearing In
Arizona AG Sues House Over Delay In Adelita Grijalva’s Swearing In
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes filed a lawsuit against the House of Representatives for delaying the swearing in of Democratic Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva.
According to CBS News, Mayes filed the suit in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., and asked for a judgment ruling that Grijalva would officially be a member of the House of Representatives “once she has taken the oath prescribed by law.” Adelita Grijalva won a special election in Arizona last month to take the seat of her late father, former Rep. Raul Grijalva, who died earlier this year. Normally, she would’ve been sworn in already, but the House hasn’t been in session since Sept. 19. House Majority Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to call the House back in session while the government is shut down.
“Speaker Mike Johnson is actively stripping the people of Arizona of one of their seats in Congress and disenfranchising the voters of Arizona’s seventh Congressional district in the process,” Mayes said in a statement, according to NBC News. “By blocking Adelita Grijalva from taking her rightful oath of office, he 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’s lawsuit added that if Johnson doesn’t swear Grijalva in that she should be sworn in “by any person authorized by law to administer oaths under the law of the United States, the District of Columbia, or the State of Arizona.” On Tuesday, Johnson called the lawsuit “patently absurd.”
“We run the House,” Johnson told reporters. “She has no jurisdiction. We’re following the precedent. She’s looking for national publicity. Apparently, she’s gotten some of it, but good luck with that.”
Grijalva appeared with House Minority Speaker Hakeem Jeffries at a news conference on Tuesday shortly after the lawsuit had been filed. “It’s a disgrace that Mike Johnson and Republicans continue to refuse to swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva,” Jeffries told reporters in the Capitol. “It’s disrespectful of her; it’s disrespectful to the 812,000 who elected her; it’s disrespectful to the great state of Arizona; and it’s disrespectful to the House of Representatives.”
“There is so much that cannot be done until I am sworn in,” Grijalva added. “While we’re getting a lot of attention for not being sworn in, I’d rather get the attention for doing my job.”
Grijalva’s win significantly changes the math for House Republicans ahead of next year’s midterms. Should a Democrat win the special election in Texas to fill the seat of late Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner, Republicans will only control the House by a 219-215 margin. This means Johnson could only lose one vote on any bill introduced in the House. Clearly, this has the GOP worried as they have begun an aggressive, and quite frankly unusual, mid-decade redistricting campaign in several states to try and maintain control of the House through partisan gerrymandering.
While Johnson has said he’ll swear in Adelita Grijalva once the shutdown is over, critics of the move believe he’s delaying swearing her in as she’ll be the pivotal signature on a discharge petition that will force a vote on releasing the Epstein files. Johnson has also been called out for his hypocrisy, as he had no problem calling a pro forma session to swear in two Republican representatives from Florida within 24 hours of them winning special elections in April. Johnson said the difference there was that the representatives and their families were already in D.C. when he swore them in.
Considering that Adelita Grijalva was in D.C. for the news conference with Jefferies, couldn’t he have just called another pro forma session to swear her in? I mean, by Johnson’s own precedent, that would’ve made the most sense, right?
SEE ALSO:
Mike Johnson Is Using His Power To Delay Release Of Epstein Files
Adelita Grijalva’s Special Election Victory Narrows GOP House Majority
Arizona AG Sues House Over Delay In Adelita Grijalva’s Swearing In was originally published on newsone.com
