“Constitutional rights cannot be used as a bargaining chip,” Mayes wrote in the complaint.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes has filed a federal lawsuit against U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, claiming that his failure to swear in recently-elected Rep. Adelita Grijalva is unconstitutional.
According to POLITICO, the lawsuit was filed earlier this week in a Washington-based federal court. In court documents, Mayes asks that Johnson be compelled to affirm Grijalva’s election.
“Constitutional rights cannot be used as a bargaining chip,” Mayes wrote in the complaint.
“Speaker Mike Johnson is actively stripping the people of Arizona of one of their seats in Congress and disenfranchising the voters of Arizona’s seventh Congressional district in the process,” Mayes said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “By blocking Adelita Grijalva from taking her rightful oath of office, he is subjecting Arizona’s seventh Congressional district to taxation without representation. I will not allow Arizonans to be silenced or treated as second-class citizens in their own democracy.”
Johnson has since responded to the lawsuit by calling it “patently absurd,” accusing Mayes of trying to drum up “national publicity” for her own political purposes.
“We run the House,” Johnson said. “She has no jurisdiction. We’re following the precedent.”
“So, yet another Democrat politician from Arizona is trying to get national publicity. So now it’s the state AG, who’s going to sue me because […] Rep.-elect Grijalva is not yet sworn in,” Johnson said in a press conference.
Grijalva, notes POLITICO, won a special election in Arizona’s 7th Congressional District.
Elected to replace her father, the late Rep. Raul Grijalva, her win came several days after Johnson sent the House home in September. Grijalva and her allies say that Johnson has purposefully avoided swearing her in, largely because she’s promised to vote in favor of legislation related to the so-called “Epstein files.”
Johnson has said that he’ll only swear Grijalva after the Senate musters the votes to re-open the federal government.
“I will administer the oath to [Grijalva], I hope, on the first day we come back to legislative session. I’m willing and anxious to do that,” he said.
But, in response to Mayes and Grijalva’s claims, Johnosn criticized her for “doing TikTok videos” instead of “serving her constituents.”
Grijalva, though, says that her office doesn’t yet have funds—and hasn’t for the past month.
“There is so much that cannot be done until I’m sworn in,” Grijalva said in a press conference on Tuesday. “So every moment that passes that I’m not able to provide constituent services or be a voice for Arizona, I cannot bring the issues forward that they sent me here to do.”
Sources
Arizona attorney general sues Mike Johnson for failing to seat Adelita Grijalva
Arizona sues Mike Johnson to force swearing-in of Democrat who could sway Epstein vote
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