Arizona Attorney General General Kris Mayes has filed a lawsuit over House Speaker Mike Johnson’s delay in swearing in a newly-elected Democrat.
In the lawsuit, Mayes argues that Johnson does not have the authority to prevent Adelita Grijalva from taking her seat in the House, where Republicans hold a narrow majority.
“If the Speaker were granted that authority, he could thwart the peoples’ choice of who should represent them in Congress by denying them representation for a significant portion of the two-year term provided by the Constitution,” the suit states. “Fortunately, the Constitution does not give that authority to the Speaker—or anyone else."
Grijalva was elected to succeed her late father on Sept. 23. Johnson has said he would swear her in when the government shutdown ends.
That Grijalva has remained on the sidelines is good news for those who don’t want to have the Trump administration release its files on Jeffrey Epstein, the dead sex offender and former pal of the president. Grijalva has said she would immediately sign a discharge petition to force a House vote on the matter. The bipartisan petition is currently a single vote short.
“On my very first day in Congress, I’ll sign the bipartisan discharge petition to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files,” Grijalva said last month. “This is as much about fulfilling Congress’s duty as a constitutional check on this administration as it is about demanding justice for survivors.”
Nine days into the shutdown, which entered its third week on Tuesday, Grijalva explicitly accused Johnson of delaying swearing her in “to avoid releasing the Epstein files.” Johnson has insisted that it “has zero to do with Epstein.”
Reacting to Tuesday’s lawsuit, Grijalva said it was warranted to ensure that her constituents “are no longer silenced.”
"@SpeakerJohnson’s obstruction has gone far beyond petty partisan politics – it’s an unlawful breach of our Constitution and the democratic process," she wrote on X.
Johnson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
“I will administer the oath to her, I hope on the first day we come back, of the legislative session,” Johnson, who has canceled votes amid the shutdown, said Monday, per The Hill. “I’m willing and anxious to do that. In the meantime, instead of doing TikTok videos, she should be serving her constituents.”
