It looks like Arizona’s Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva will need to wait even longer to take her seat in Congress.
Grijalva — a Tucson Democrat who had a decisive win in a special election last month for her late father’s congressional seat — has been at the U.S. Capitol for days waiting to be sworn in to office.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said earlier this week Grijalva was to be sworn in as early as Tuesday.
Adelita Grijalva shared her frustration on social media about the delay in her ability to take office.
But on Friday, Johnson announced the chamber will close for legislative business next week.
Adelita Grijalva shared her frustration on social media about the delay in her ability to take office.
The even longer delay did not sit well with Grijalva.
“Still playing games with my swearing in date?” she wrote on social media. “What are Republicans so afraid of? One more vote for accountability?”
Grijalva has been without an office, a desk or staff.
“It’s very frustrating,” she told the Associated Press, adding that keeping her from her congressional seat is unfair to the residents she will be serving in Southern Arizona’s Seventh District, with “no one voting for them, no constituent services, no support.”
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., said Friday the chamber will close for legislative business next week, pushing the swearing in of Democrat Adelita Grijalva into Congress even longer.
Democrats have accused Johnson of delaying Grijalva’s swearing-in because it improves their chances of forcing a vote for the release of the Justice Department files on the sex trafficking investigation into the late Jeffrey Epstein. Grijalva has said repeatedly that she backs that effort.
She’d be the last signatory needed for a petition to force that vote, joining Democrats and some Republicans.
“The Republicans are blocking her from her position because they want to protect pedophiles. It’s a disgrace,” Arizona Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego has said in a post on X.
Johnson has said closing the chamber is a move meant to force the Senate to work with the government funding bill that has been passed by House Republicans.
Democrats are demanding that Congress extend health-care benefits, while Republicans are refusing to commit to anything until the government is reopened. They are trying to wear Democrats down to vote for a House-passed bill that would reopen the government temporarily, mostly at current spending levels.
Although Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress, the Senate’s filibuster rules make it necessary for the government funding legislation to gain support from at least 60 of the 100 senators. That’s given Democrats a rare opportunity to use their 47 Senate seats to hold out in exchange for policy concessions. Democrats have chosen to rally on the issue of health care, believing it could be key to their path back to power in Washington.
