Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes filed a lawsuit on Tuesday to try to force the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, to swear in and confirm elected Representative Adelita Grijalva. The Arizona Democrat won her late father’s seat in a special election almost a month ago, but Johnson claims he cannot officially receive her in Congress due to the government shutdown, which tonight becomes the second longest in history and still has no end on the horizon. However, the congresswoman-elect and other Democrats point out that the real reason is to delay a vote in the House, in which Grijalva would be decisive and that would force the publication of the documents on the case and the investigation into pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, which is suspected of affecting President Donald Trump.
The lawsuit, which Mayes threatened to file in a letter sent to Johnson last week, argues that Johnson’s delay is depriving the 813,000 residents who live in the border Arizona district that elected Grijalva on September 23. The legal action includes the State of Arizona and Grijalva herself as plaintiffs, and the United States House of Representatives, as well as the secretary and sergeant-at-arms of the House, as defendants.
“President Mike Johnson is actively disenfranchising the people of Arizona of one of their seats in Congress and, in the process, disenfranchising the voters of Arizona’s 7th Congressional District,” Mayes said in a statement. “By preventing Adelita Grijalva from taking her oath of office, you are subjecting Arizona’s 7th Congressional District to taxation without representation. I will not allow Arizonans to be silenced or treated as second-class citizens in their own democracy.”
As he left the Capitol on Tuesday, Johnson called Arizona’s lawsuit “absurd.” He added that Prosecutor Mayes does not have jurisdiction to file such a lawsuit. This legal argument is uncertain for now.
Johnson maintains from the beginning that the government shutdown prevents confirmation from being held, although in the past, this year, investitures of Republican representatives have been held when the House was not in regular session. In April 2025, two Florida Republicans, Randy Fine and Jimmy Patronis, won their respective special elections and were sworn in the next day during a session pro forma in which the House was not carrying out all its activities.
With this in mind, Adelita Grijalva traveled to Washington in early October with the expectation of taking up her position and beginning her new job. But so far, Johnson has not scheduled an inauguration ceremony for her, preventing her from using his office or accessing the parts of the Capitol intended for unescorted members of Congress. “Yes, I have access to an office. But it’s as if someone told you: here you have a car, but it doesn’t have an engine, gasoline or tires.”
Grijalva and numerous other Democratic members of Congress have repeatedly said that the real reason Johnson is delaying his inauguration is to prevent Epstein’s files from being made public. Although his official entry into the House would not give the Democrats a majority, it would tip the balance in a key vote to force the publication of the so-called Epstein Papers. Thanks to four Republicans, the Democrats have 217 votes, Grijalva has promised to be the decisive 218th.
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