Lawsuit seeks to force swearing in of US Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva of Arizona

PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes has filed a lawsuit that seeks to get Democrat Adelita Grijalva sworn in as the state’s newest member of Congress after U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to seat her a month since winning the post.

The Democratic attorney general filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Washington on behalf of Grijalva. It asks a judge to let other people who are authorized to administer the oath swear in Grijalva if Johnson has not done so. Mayes has said previously that the delay in giving Grijalva, the first Latina to represent Arizona in Congress, the oath of office leaves over 800,000 people in the southern Arizona district without representation.

Grijalva, a former elected county official in the Tucson area, easily won a Sept. 23 special election to fill the post previously held by her father, progressive Democrat Raúl Grijalva, who died in March after serving in Congress for more than two decades.

She said the delay has left people in her district without the constituent services that are normally provided by congressional offices.

Johnson has said Adelita Grijalva will be sworn in when the House returns to session, blamed the government shutdown for the delay and accused Mayes of seeking publicity when she threatened to file the lawsuit.

Once she is sworn in, Grijalva would narrow the margins and give Democrats more power to confront Trump and the GOP agenda.

Democrats have accused Johnson of delaying Grijalva’s swearing-in because it improves their chances of forcing a vote for the release of the U.S. Justice Department files on the sex trafficking investigation into the late Jeffrey Epstein. Johnson has rejected the accusation. Grijalva has pledged to back the effort to release the Epstein investigation documents and would be the last signature needed for a petition to force that vote.