Democratic congresswoman-elect Adelita Grijalva has arrived on Capitol Hill. Her welcome present? An imminent government shutdown.
Speaker Mike Johnson hasn’t sworn her into the House yet, though she was elected on Sept. 23 to succeed her father, the late Rep. Raúl Grijalva, in Arizona’s 7th District. And the looming possibility that the government shuts down at midnight would almost certainly make her entry into Congress even more complicated.
It’s “frustrating,” she said of her predicament.
“At this point, I can’t hire staff. We don’t have an office. I can’t get around without being escorted,” Grijalva told reporters Tuesday. “As much as the caucus has been incredibly supportive, you know, they have to sort of wait for me or bring me in.”
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NOTUS observed the congresswoman-elect going through security Tuesday morning alongside visitors and reporters — something lawmakers typically don’t need to do when walking through the Capitol.
“It’s very much second-class-citizen feeling for me,” she said.
Grijalva attended closed-door House Democratic meetings on Monday and Tuesday and was present at Democrats’ press conferences Tuesday on the shutdown. But there are limits to what she can do without being sworn in.
Nearly all House Democrats attended Tuesday’s pro forma session, an unusual tactic to protest Johnson’s decision to keep the House out of session before the funding deadline Tuesday at midnight. They also demanded that Grijalva be sworn in.
However, the session was adjourned without Democrats getting recognized on the floor.
Johnson’s team has been radio silent, Grijalva said. She said she had not received any guidance about being sworn in as of noon Tuesday; the only information she said she’d gotten was from reporters. A Johnson spokesperson told NOTUS in a statement that the speaker had “received the appropriate paperwork from the state.”
“The Speaker’s Office intends to schedule a swearing in for the Representative-elect when the House returns to session,” the spokesperson said.
House Democrats are already speculating that there are ulterior motives behind the delays in Grijalva’s swearing in.
Her election puts the spotlight back on Republican Rep. Thomas Massie’s discharge petition to compel the Justice Department to release documents pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein. Massie told reporters last week that Grijalva has promised to sign the petition.
“They won’t swear her in because they’re worried about the Epstein files,” Rep. Brad Schneider, chair of the New Democrat Coalition, said Monday. “We’re better than this, and the Republicans should be here working with us to serve the American people.”
“You can only assume that that is his (Johnson’s) sinister motive, given the fact that there’s no other basis for him to deny her being sworn in,” Rep. Julie Johnson told NOTUS.
Grijalva argued that in not swearing her in, Johnson was breaking Republicans’ own precedent. While Johnson’s spokesperson said it is “standard practice” to swear new members in during a regular House session, in April, two House Republicans — Reps. Randy Fine and Jimmy Patronis — were sworn in during pro forma sessions, within a day of being elected.
“We can still get sworn in when there is a shutdown,” Grijalva said. She said that the speaker’s team has had her race’s official results “since the day after I won by nearly 40 points. There is no disagreement, no ambiguity. It’s not a recount situation here.”
But Grijalva risks not having congressional staff if she’s sworn in during a shutdown.
“Once that happens, a shutdown, I can’t onboard staff,” she told NOTUS on Monday night. Not getting sworn in, she continued, “prolongs the lack of constituent services to the district and representations of the district.”
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