After seven weeks of unprecedented delays, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Wednesday finally formally swore in Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ).
The swearing in ceremony came after Johnson called the House back into session — after refusing to do so for more than a seven weeks — to vote on the Senate-passed continuing resolution that would reopen the government.
Grijalva pushed back on Johnson’s delay in her first floor speech following her swearing in.
“It has been 50 days since the people of Arizona’s 7th congressional district elected me to represent them. 50 days that over 800,000 Arizonans were left without access to the basic services every constituent deserves,” Grijalva said. “This is an abuse of power. One individual should not be able to unilaterally obstruct the swearing in of a duly elected member of Congress for political reasons. Our democracy only works when everyone has a voice.”
Grijalva will be the final vote needed on the bipartisan discharge petition — led by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) — that will force a vote on fully releasing the Justice Department’s files on the Jeffrey Epstein case. The vote will put all House members officially on the record on their stance in releasing the Epstein files.
A floor vote on the bill is reportedly expected in the first week of December. But even if the House successfully passes the bill, Republicans expect it to go nowhere in the Senate. Senate GOP leadership have not committed to bringing it up for a floor vote.
Grijalva was elected following a special election to replace her late father, Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), on Sept. 23 but was not sworn in: Johnson kept the House on vacation, holding weeks of pro forma sessions, despite an intense push from congressional Democrats to let their newest member take her seat.
After initially saying he would swear her in “as soon as she wants,” Johnson quickly pivoted to saying he wouldn’t do it until the House is back in session, linking that eventuality to Senate action on the government shutdown.
House Democrats tried to raise the issue multiple times on the House floor during the pro forma sessions, but Republicans refused to recognize them.
Johnson swore in two Republicans during a pro forma session earlier this year.
Johnson, later, also tried to use another short-lived excuse for delaying the swearing in ceremony, pointing to the delay in then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) swearing in of Rep. Julia Letlow (R-VA), which happened about a month after her election in 2021.
In October, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) and Grijalva even sued the Speaker for delaying the process, pointing to Johnson’s “inconsistent” reasoning for refusing to seat Grijalva.
Mayes and Grijalva requested a declaratory judgment from the court saying that if Johnson won’t administer the oath, it can be administered “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.”
Republicans need to start calling for Trump to resign, and they need to start doing that now, otherwise they are going to go down too.
Can signees remove their signatures at this late date? If possible, my guess is we won’t have the necessary 218 for long.
What?? So the discharge petition just means that now the House can vote whether or not to demand the release of the Epstein Files? And then the Senate has to pass the same exact bill?? The Files can’t just be released to the House?
And given the Senate requirement for concurrence, which it’s assumed cannot even happen, that means Trump gets to veto the whole thing, making the exercise all but futile?? Really?
And finally, Adelita never needed to be sworn in by Big Mike; anybody could have done it? And saved Arizona all the sturm und drang?
The United States sure has managed to make doing ANYTHING really hard. This can’t continue. Better yet, it shouldn’t.
I wish she had asked to be sworn in holding a copy of the Constitution.
If the Speaker is absent or refuses, the House can pass a resolution authorizing someone else to perform the ceremony.