For nearly a month, Arizona’s 7th Congressional District has watched its seat in the U.S. House of Representatives sit empty, its newly elected representative Adelita Grijalva waiting in the wings. The cause? A high-stakes political standoff between House Speaker Mike Johnson and Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, culminating this week in a federal lawsuit that has thrust the issue of congressional representation—and the very rules of the House—into the national spotlight.
Adelita Grijalva, a Democrat and the daughter of the late longtime Congressman Raúl Grijalva, won a special election on September 23, 2025, to fill the seat her father held for over two decades. Arizona officials certified the results on October 14, but by October 21, she still had not been sworn in. According to Axios, that left more than 800,000 Arizonans without a voice in Congress, and the state’s leaders were running out of patience.
Attorney General Kris Mayes, also a Democrat, had warned Speaker Johnson that a lawsuit was imminent if he did not provide a clear date and plan for swearing in Grijalva within two days of the election’s certification. That deadline came and went. On October 21, Mayes and Grijalva followed through, filing suit in federal court in Washington, D.C., against the House, its clerk, and sergeant at arms. Their demand: allow Grijalva to take her oath of office—if not from Johnson, then from any authorized official.
“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 reported by NBC News. “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.”
Grijalva echoed that frustration, telling MSNBC, “I am grateful to Attorney General Mayes for her support in fighting for the voices of more than 800,000 Arizonans who are currently being silenced by Speaker Johnson.” She added, “There is so much that cannot be done until I am sworn in. While we’re getting a lot of attention for not being sworn in, I’d rather get the attention for doing my job.”
The lawsuit argues that the U.S. Constitution does not specify who must administer the oath of office to new House members, only that they must take it. If the Speaker refuses, Mayes and Grijalva argue, a judge should allow any authorized person to perform the ceremony. The suit also contends that Johnson’s delay is not just a bureaucratic hiccup, but a violation of both Grijalva’s rights and those of her constituents. The people of Arizona’s 7th District, Mayes wrote in an op-ed, “will not sit quietly while 813,000 Arizonans are treated as second-class citizens.”
Speaker Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, has dismissed the lawsuit as “patently absurd.” According to CNN, he told reporters, “We run the House. She has no jurisdiction. We’re following the precedent. She’s looking for national publicity, apparently she’s gotten some of it, but good luck with that.” Johnson insists he is following the so-called “Pelosi precedent,” referencing then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to wait 25 days to swear in Julia Letlow, a Republican special election winner from Louisiana, in 2021. At the time, the House was out of session due to the pandemic, and Letlow was sworn in when lawmakers returned.
Johnson has said he is “willing and anxious” to swear in Grijalva on the first day the House resumes regular legislative session, which has been suspended amid a government shutdown now stretching into its fourth week. “So I will administer the oath to her on the first day we come back [to] legislative session,” Johnson said, as reported by CNN.
But critics—including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other Democrats—point out that Johnson has previously sworn in two Republican members during pro forma sessions, brief meetings that occur even during shutdowns, in April 2025. “The decision to seat right-wing Republicans with record speed, while denying a newly elected Democrat the opportunity to serve is an unacceptable disgrace,” Jeffries wrote in a letter to Johnson, according to MSNBC.
Some Democrats believe the Speaker’s motives go beyond procedure. The lawsuit alleges that Johnson is intentionally delaying Grijalva’s swearing-in to prevent her from casting a crucial 218th vote on a discharge petition related to the release of files from the Jeffrey Epstein sex crimes case. This petition, spearheaded by Reps. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna, would force a House vote to compel the Justice Department to release all its Epstein files—a move that has drawn bipartisan support and pressure from outside groups. Johnson has denied that the Epstein issue is a factor, insisting the delay is purely about House rules and the ongoing shutdown.
Meanwhile, Grijalva’s status as a member-elect has left her in limbo. She cannot access her Capitol office, has no allocated budget, and cannot log into her work computer, as reported by Axios and MSNBC. “I can only enter the Capitol as a tourist,” Grijalva said, underscoring her inability to serve her constituents in any official capacity. Her supporters argue that this is not just inconvenient—it amounts to the disenfranchisement of an entire district.
The standoff has also become a rallying point for Democrats, who have staged protests and held news conferences on Capitol Hill to pressure Johnson. Mayes, running for re-election in 2026, has used the moment to highlight what she calls a fundamental issue of democracy and representation. “Arizona’s right to full representation in Congress is not up for debate, and it is not a pawn for Johnson to use as leverage in his shutdown fight with Democrats,” she wrote in her op-ed.
For Johnson and his allies, the legal and political maneuvering is seen as grandstanding. “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, according to NBC News. He has argued that Grijalva could still assist constituents in unofficial ways, saying, “Instead of doing TikTok videos, she should be serving her constituents. She could be taking their calls. She could be directing them, trying to help them through the crisis that the Democrats have created by shutting down the government.”
As the legal battle unfolds, the question of when—or if—Grijalva will be sworn in remains unresolved. With no clear end in sight to the government shutdown or the House’s recess, Arizona’s 7th District continues to wait for its representative to take her seat. The outcome of the lawsuit could set a precedent for how future House vacancies are filled—and who gets to decide when a member-elect is finally allowed to serve.
