Rep. Raúl Grijalva served in the U.S. House of Representatives for over 22 years. Sadly, the Arizona Democrat died in March after a year-long battle with lung cancer. On September 23, his daughter, Adelita Grijalva, won the special election to fill his seat for the remainder of the current term.

That was over two weeks ago. But Adelita Grijalva has still not been sworn in — meaning she is unable to represent the more than 800,000 people of her district in Arizona, who voted for her by a blowout margin of 69% to 29% over the Republican contender.

Why?

• Because Mike Johnson — the Trump sycophant who, as Speaker of the House, is in charge of what does and doesn’t come up for a vote — refuses to swear her in.

• Johnson’s refusal to seat Grijalva is at least in part a craven ploy to prevent her from joining a growing bipartisan effort in Congress to release the Epstein files so that the American people can see for ourselves which, if any, politicians may have been involved in the heinous crimes we know Epstein carried out over a span of decades.

• By the way, if you’ve heard MAGA pundits on Fox “News” or elsewhere claiming that Grijalva has not been sworn in yet because the House is not in session, consider this: When two Republicans won special elections on April 1, Johnson somehow managed to get them sworn in the very next day even though the House was not in session at that time, either.

• Until she is sworn in, Grijalva can’t hire staff, set up an office, use any congressional resources to serve constituents, or even walk freely within the halls of the United States Capitol.

In essence, the people of Adelita Grijalva’s district in Arizona are being deprived of their right to congressional representation because Mike Johnson is a partisan hack and a coward.

Tell House Speaker Mike Johnson:

The people of Arizona’s 7th congressional district deserve representation in Congress, and they chose Adelita Grijalva — by overwhelming numbers — to be their representative. Your craven refusal to swear her in is un-American. Stop holding Rep. Grijalva, her constituents, the American people, and our democracy hostage. Seat Adelita Grijalva immediately.

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- Robert Weissman & Lisa Gilbert, Co-Presidents of Public Citizen
 
 
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