Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes is threatening to sue House Speaker Mike Johnson if he does not swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva “without further delay.”
Ms. Grijalva won a Sept. 23 special election to replace her late father, former Rep. Raúl Grijalva, but cannot officially begin her congressional duties until she is sworn into office.
“Failing to seat Ms. Grijalva immediately or to otherwise provide a reasonable explanation as to when she will be seated will prompt legal action,” Ms. Mayes wrote in a letter to Mr. Johnson.
She copied U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Ferris Pirro on the letter.
Arizona formally certified its special election results on Tuesday, which Ms. Mayes argued should take away any remaining excuses for not seating Ms. Grijvala.
“Ms. Grijalva no longer needs a House resolution to be sworn into office,” she said. “With the House in possession of the certificate of election, it is now a simple ministerial duty to administer the oath of office.”
Earlier that morning, before the letter went out, Mr. Johnson told reporters he would swear in Ms. Grijalva as soon as the House returns to legislative session, whenever the government shutdown ends.
“I’m going to be happy to administer the oath to her, as I am to every member who is duly elected to this body,” the speaker said. “It’s a great honor. But she won her election after the House was out of session, so we’ve not had a full session.”
GOP leaders have indefinitely extended a House recess that began Sept. 19 after the chamber passed a stopgap spending bill to fund the government through Nov. 21. Senate Democrats are filibustering that bill, and Mr. Johnson said the House will not return to session until they pass it.
The House has held brief pro forma sessions every three days. Mr. Johnson has declined to swear Ms. Grijalva in during one of those sessions, despite repeated requests from House Democrats.
“Ms. Grijalva and the State expected that you would follow your usual practice and swear her into office at the earliest opportunity, just as you had done with five previous members elected in special elections,” Ms. Mayes wrote.
“The effect of your failure to follow usual practice is that Arizona is down a representative from the number to which it is constitutionally entitled,” she said. “And the more than 813,000 residents of Arizona’s Seventh Congressional District currently have no representation in Congress.”
Ms. Mayes said she expects a response from Mr. Johnson within two days and that she will seek “judicial relief” if he does provide an “immediate” date to swear in Ms. Grijalva, “prior to the date the House comes back into regular session.”
Mr. Johnson’s office responded to the legal threat with a statement from the speaker reiterating that “the House will follow customary practice by swearing in Rep-elect Grijalva when the House is in legislative session.”
Mr. Johnson swore in two Republicans who won special elections in Florida earlier this year during an April 2 pro forma session. He said that it was previously planned as a full session day and only held the swearing-in because the members’ families were already in Washington.
Despite that, the speaker said he wants to maintain the precedent of swearing in members during a normal legislative session.
Ms. Grijalva “deserves to have all the pop and circumstance that everybody else does,” he said. “She deserves to have a full House of members and go down and do the speech and have her family and friends in the balcony. That hasn’t been scheduled because we haven’t had that session yet.”
Congressional Democrats have accused Mr. Johnson of delaying the swearing-in to keep Ms. Grijalva from becoming the 218th and final signature on a discharge petition to force a vote on requiring the Justice Department to release its Epstein files.
Mr. Johnson has repeatedly denied that accusation, and Ms. Mayes’ letter did not mention it.
However, she did take issue with the speaker “suggesting that the House is trying to use Arizona’s constitutional right to representation in the House as a bargaining chip.”
Mr. Johnson has on multiple occasions said Arizona Democratic Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego, who confronted him outside his office last week about not having sworn in Ms. Grijalva, could resolve the issue by voting to reopen the government.
“As soon as Mark Kelly and Senator Gallego, the two senators from Arizona, Ms. Grijalva’s state, will go and join with three others and open the government, we’re happy – we’ll have that as soon as we get back to business,” the speaker said Tuesday. “But we have to get back to business. They have to open the government.”
