House Republican Says Newly-Elected Democrat Should Be Sworn In Without Delay: ‘She Won Her Election’

Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images

Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ), who has been waiting more than a month to be sworn into office, shared several tweets Monday pointing to some allies she has on the Republican side of the aisle.

Grijalva won a special election on Sept. 23, easily trouncing her Republican opponent in her deep-blue district 69% to 29%. She will succeed her father, Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), who died on March 13, in representing Arizona’s 7th district — when she is eventually sworn in.

House Republicans are dragging their feet on letting Grijalva officially join their ranks and have been using the government shutdown as an excuse. Grijalva and her supporters have openly speculated that the delay is driven by the fact that she would be the 218th vote in the House to vote to release the Epstein files.

On Oct. 22, the Arizona Attorney General filed a lawsuit seeking to have Grijalva sworn in.

Over the past few weeks, Grijalva has used her social media to keep her constituents updated and publicly call on Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to swear her in. On Monday, her tweets mentioned several Republicans who supported her quest.

One such post quoted an op-ed at AL.com by former Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), titled “House Republicans step on thin ice as they ignore the Constitution.”

Brooks, a former staunchly MAGA ally of President Donald Trump who backed his baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 election, has more recently become a very vocal critic of the president.

The delays in swearing in Grijalva, wrote Brooks in his op-ed, represented “[p]ure, raw, powerplay politics” and “a ‘win at all cost’ attitude that, ultimately, causes all Americans to lose.”

Grijalva “won fair and square,” he continued, “and there “were no election contests” and “no other disputes.”

Citing his twelve years in Congress, Brooks pointed out that “winners of special elections were usually sworn in within one to three days after winning their elections,” at most waiting “a couple of weeks or until Congress was back in session.”

Johnson “has no legitimate excuse for delay,” Brooks argued, adding that “it appears Johnson refuses to swear in Grijalva because her vote may affect whether Republican legislation passes or fails — or, more pointedly, whether the Epstein files will be released as promised.”

“I’m a Republican. The House Speaker is a Republican. Adelita Grijalva is a Democrat. But what is right is right, and what the Republican House Speaker is doing to Democrat Adelita Grijalva is wrong,” he declared. “Period.”

Grijalva also shared an NPR interview with Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA), in which he expressed his support for swearing in Grijalva.

From the article on NPR’s website:

Democrats have criticized Johnson’s handling of the standoff, accusing the speaker of using the recess to delay the swearing-in of Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, who won a special election to fill the seat of her late father, Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona. Johnson has rejected that claim, saying the delay is unrelated. Kiley said he supports seating Adelita Grijalva without delay.

“She won her election. I don’t know why this is even an issue,” he said.

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