Johnson Continues Block on Swearing-In Grijalva, Making Undue Demands of Her

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) finally seems receptive to swearing in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-Arizona), who won a special election last month, but says he won’t do so until Democrats agree to end the government shutdown.

There is no legal reason why Grijalva can’t be sworn in during the stalemate over funding the government — in fact, doing so would allow her vote, on behalf of her constituents in Arizona’s 7th Congressional District, to be counted in a future continuing resolution bill. Swearing her in would also have myriad benefits for her constituents.

Despite vowing to swear in Grijalva, Johnson chastised the representative-elect for her social media posts criticizing him for the delay; in those posts, Grijalva suggests that the delay is because hers is the last vote needed to force a bipartisan vote on the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, which Johnson has opposed.

“I will administer the oath to her, I hope, on the first day we come back. I am willing and anxious to do that,” Johnson claimed in comments to the press on Monday. “In the meantime, instead of doing TikTok videos, she should be serving her constituents.”

Much of Grijalva’s videos are about the fact that Johnson could swear her in right now but is refusing to do so.

“She could be taking their calls, she can be directing them, trying to help them,” Johnson added.

The speaker also dismissed the idea of a federal lawsuit, filed last week by Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D), to compel the swearing-in of Grijalva. Despite that lawsuit suggesting that Johnson was in “violation of the Constitution” and citing multiple Supreme Court precedents, Johnson ridiculed Mayes by suggesting she was only suing him as a “publicity stunt.”

Johnson’s inference that Grijalva should focus on her constituents is wrongheaded for one major reason: She cannot do most of the work he suggests she should do for her voters until she is sworn in.

Until she becomes an official representative, Grijalva has no congressional allowance allocated to her to provide services for her constituents. She also can’t log into congressional computer systems, as only fully-fledged representatives and their office teams are granted access to such systems. And each day she enters the Capitol, she spends valuable time she could be in her office having to wait in the same line that visitors to the building use, rather than being able to bypass the line and get to work right away, as all other members of Congress can.

“Every day that I am not sworn in is another day that my constituents are blocked from critical constituent services and excluded from debates happening right now that affect their lives,” Grijalva said at a press conference last week.

Grijalva was elected in a special election nearly one month ago. It is unusual for a representative-elect to be forced to wait this long to be sworn in; indeed, several Republican lawmakers were given the privilege of a speedier process earlier this year, even while the House of Representatives was out of session.