Democrat Adelita Grijalva cruised to a landslide victory last week, winning her congressional special election by roughly 40 points. Once sworn in, she’ll be Arizona’s first-ever Latina congresswoman, succeeding her father, the late Rep. Raúl Grijalva, and she’ll narrow the GOP majority in the U.S. House: Republicans will hold 219 seats to the Democrats’ 214, with two vacancies remaining.
What’s more, upon arriving on Capitol Hill, she’s also said she intends to sign a pending discharge petition to force disclosure of the Jeffrey Epstein files, currently being held back by Donald Trump’s Justice Department. Proponents of the effort are currently one member short of 218 signatures, but Grijalva’s support would trigger a process House Speaker Mike Johnson would be largely powerless to stop.
All the Arizonan has to do is wait for the chamber to return from its current break, at which point she can take the oath of office. With that outcome hanging in the balance, The Arizona Republic reported:
Democrat Adelita Grijalva has for months been on a glide path to become Arizona’s next member of Congress. But now that she’s been elected, as the U.S. House stares down a government funding standoff and a bombshell measure related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a political fight is brewing around when exactly Grijalva will be sworn in.
At the heart of the matter is a question about how best to deal with routine electoral bureaucracy.
In theory, Grijalva could be sworn in as Congress’ newest member on Oct. 7, the day members get back to work. This would be consistent with standard practice, including recent developments with Democratic Rep. James Walkinshaw of Virginia, who was declared the unofficial winner of his special election and was sworn in days later.
But there are growing concerns that Republican leaders in the chamber will try to delay Grijalva’s swearing in until officials in Arizona certify the special election results — which, again, were not close — weeks later.
“I think that maybe it has to do with the fact that I am the 218th signer to push for a vote on the release of the Epstein files,” Grijalva told a local outlet, referring to a possible delay.
Maybe so. The House speaker’s office hasn’t elaborated on its plans, saying only that the chamber would wait for the “appropriate paperwork.” But as a practical matter, Congress has already received the appropriate paperwork: Arizona Secretary of State’s Office notified the House clerk last week that Grijalva is the unofficial election winner based on the lopsided results. Under standard practices, that should be plenty. “This documentation has been sufficient to swear in multiple members of Congress,” a spokesperson for the Democrats on the House Administration Committee told the Arizona Republic. Will the Speaker’s Office agree? Is there a reason Johnson is being coy about this? Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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