Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) has issued a stark warning to U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana): Seat Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-Arizona), or face a lawsuit.
Johnson has thus far refused to seat Grijalva, who won a special election to represent the seventh congressional district of Arizona more than three weeks ago. It is atypical for a person who has won a special election to wait this long to be officially sworn in.
On Tuesday, Mayes sent a letter to Johnson expressing frustration over his refusal to seat Grijalva, noting that the delay leaves people in Grijalva’s district without representation in the House and unable to access constituent services that other lawmakers can readily provide.
“On behalf of the State of Arizona, I demand that the Honorable Adelita Grijalva be sworn into office as the representative for Arizona’s Seventh Congressional District and be allowed to assume her seat without further delay,” Mayes wrote in her letter. “Failing to seat Ms. Grijalva immediately or to otherwise provide a reasonable explanation as to when she will be seated will prompt legal action.”
The effect of your failure to follow usual practice is that Arizona is down a representative from the number to which it is constitutionally entitled. And the more than 813,000 residents of Arizona’s Seventh Congressional District currently have no representation in Congress.
The House and Johnson have acted “in violation of the Constitution” in refusing to seat Grijalva, Mayes said, citing Supreme Court precedent to back her claims. She also stated that Johnson “is without authority to refuse her oath and admission.”
Johnson’s excuses for refusing to seat Grijalva are “ever-shifting, unsatisfactory, and sometimes absurd stories,” Mayes wrote. She cited one excuse in particular — Johnson’s staff has claimed the government shutdown is playing a role in his decision-making, which suggests that GOP leadership in the House “is trying to use Arizona’s constitutional right to representation in the House as a bargaining chip” against Democrats, she said.
Mayes said she would give Johnson until Thursday to respond to her demands to seat Grijalva. “Should you fail to provide such assurance, we will be forced to seek judicial relief to protect Arizona and the residents of its Seventh Congressional District,” she added.
Mayes reiterated her demands in subsequent interviews, saying in a CNN appearance this week that it appears she will have “no other choice except to take Speaker Johnson to court” if he doesn’t comply.
“If I have to, I’ll take him to court,” she repeated, adding that there’s “no other reason” to delay the swearing-in, aside from Grijalva potentially casting the deciding vote on the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Grijalva has pledged that when she is seated, she will sign a discharge petition forcing a vote on the Epstein files despite Johnson’s objections. The petition, which is backed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, currently has 217 of the 218 signatures needed to force the vote.
Grijalva herself has suggested that the discharge petition appears to be the main reason for the delay. When asked whether this was the reason for the holdup in a Fox News interview on Wednesday, Johnson answered glibly.
“Bless her heart,” Johnson said. “She’s a representative-elect. She doesn’t know how it works around here.”
In response, Grijalva blasted Johnson for patronizing her.
“Your job as Speaker is to swear me in @SpeakerJohnson. That’s how things work,” she said in a post on X.
In another post, Grijalva pointed out Johnson’s hypocrisy, noting that two Republican House members were sworn in earlier this year despite the chamber not being in session.
“It took @SpeakerJohnson less than 24 hours to swear in his Republican colleagues,” Grijalva wrote. “He’s stalling because he’s scared of his puppet master Donald Trump. This delay isn’t about process. It’s about obstruction. #ReleaseTheFiles.”
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