Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes and Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva on Tuesday sued the U.S. House in federal court in Washington, D.C. for its delay in swearing the Arizona Democrat into office.
Mayes, a Democrat, argued she acted because House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., “refuses to do his job” in seating Grijalva, who was elected to Arizona’s 7th Congressional District in a September special election to succeed her late father.
“For weeks, the speaker has stonewalled, delayed and twisted himself into knots trying to justify what is, at its core, a brazen act of voter disenfranchisement,” Mayes wrote for MSNBC.
Johnson has said that Grijalva will be seated once the government reopens from its nearly four-week shutdown, although there is nothing preventing the speaker from calling the House back into session now.
Grijalva is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit.
“I am grateful to Attorney General Mayes for her support in fighting for the voices of more than 800,000 Arizonans who are currently being silenced by Speaker Johnson,” Grijalva told MSNBC.
“Arizona will not beg for its full representation in Congress,” Mayes wrote in an MSNBC op-ed after filing the lawsuit. “We will not sit quietly while 813,000 Arizonans are treated as second-class citizens. Arizona’s right to full representation in Congress is not up for debate, and it is not a pawn for Johnson to use as leverage in his shutdown fight with Democrats.”
Mayes added that Grijalva’s constituents are “being taxed without representation.”
Johnson told reporters on Friday that any potential legal action against him is “a publicity stunt by a Democrat attorney general in Arizona who sees a national moment and wants to call me out,” adding that “she has nothing whatsoever to do with what’s happening in Congress.”
The Department of Justice typically represents the federal government in lawsuits against the House. David Super, a constitutional law professor at Georgetown University, noted that Congress can use its own lawyers if its interests differ from the department
Nonetheless, he said: “I am sure Speaker Johnson is perfectly comfortable with being represented by the Justice Department.”
Super called Grijalva’s situation “unusual,” explaining that while it’s a longstanding tradition for the speaker to swear in new members, there could be a circumstance in which a judge authorizes someone else to do it.
“Courts do, however, prefer not to involve themselves in the inner workings of other branches of government,” he said.
Grijalva, Mayes and others have pointed out that Republican Florida Reps. Jimmy Patronis and Randy Fine were sworn in almost immediately after they were elected in April during a pro forma session — a brief, procedural meeting in which no official legislative business is conducted.
“The decision to seat right-wing Republicans with record speed, while denying a newly elected Democrat the opportunity to serve is an unacceptable disgrace,” Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote last week in a letter to Johnson.
Some Democrats speculate Johnson is delaying things because Grijalva would be the last signature on a petition that would force a House vote to release files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which Johnson has denied.
And it’s not just the Epstein petition that’s been put on pause. Grijalva said her current status as a member-elect means she can only enter the Capitol as a tourist and that she has not been allocated a budget. She also has not been able to access her work computer because she does not have the proper passwords.
