{"id":279004,"date":"2025-11-12T21:40:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T21:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/279004\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T21:40:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T21:40:11","slug":"rep-adelita-grijalva-is-finally-sworn-in-as-the-houses-newest-democrat-paving-way-for-epstein-files-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/279004\/","title":{"rendered":"Rep. Adelita Grijalva is finally sworn in as the House\u2019s newest Democrat, paving way for Epstein files vote"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n After 50 days of waiting, Rep. Adelita Grijalva was sworn into Congress Wednesday, bringing an end to a contentious chapter in the US House of Representatives that included a lawsuit<\/a> and rising tensions inside the Capitol<\/a> over her seating.\n <\/p>\n

\n Speaker Mike Johnson had said<\/a> he would not swear in the Arizona Democrat amid the government shutdown until the House returned to legislative session, a delay that prompted outrage from Democrats. The swearing in took place after the chamber reconvened to vote on a Senate-passed bill to reopen the government.\n <\/p>\n

\n While she waited to be sworn in, Grijalva had been unable to perform basic constituent services or even open an office in her southern Arizona district. She hasn\u2019t had a working office phone, an office budget or the ability to use government systems. Residents of the sprawling district had been without a vote in Congress.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI\u2019m basically a tourist with an office,\u201d Grijalva told<\/a> CNN last month, standing in her empty office at the Capitol.\n <\/p>\n

\n Now Grijalva will finally be able to walk onto the House floor without being escorted and join her colleagues as a member of Congress.\n <\/p>\n

\n The timing of her swearing in has also been closely watched because she is poised to become the decisive 218th member in of support an effort to force the House to vote on the release of all of the Jeffrey Epstein case files, an issue that has roiled the House and sparked division among Republicans.\n <\/p>\n

\n Democrats have argued that Johnson delayed swearing Grijalva in because she would be the deciding signature that would trigger the floor vote and pointed to other instances where Johnson moved quickly to swear in Republicans who won their special elections.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe only thing that\u2019s different about me and the three other people that this speaker swore in in under 24 hours from the date of their elections is I\u2019m the 218th signer,\u201d Grijalva told CNN last month.\n <\/p>\n

\n Johnson has defended his decision to delay Grijalva\u2019s swearing by arguing that she won her race on September 23 when the House was already out of session and had vowed to swear her in as soon as the House returned.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cJust as I promised, as soon as we get back to legislative session, so before we have this vote that we are talking about, she will be administered the oath,\u201d Johnson told CNN\u2019s Jake Tapper on Monday.\n <\/p>\n

\n The House has been out of session since September 19, as Johnson put pressure on Senate Democrats to compromise with Republicans and vote to end the government shutdown.\n <\/p>\n

\n As the shutdown dragged on, the pressure on Johnson to swear in Grijalva mounted. Arizona\u2019s Democratic senators got into a hallway confrontation with Johnson over the issue and other Democrats staged protests outside of the speaker\u2019s office. Arizona\u2019s attorney general even sued<\/a> the House of Representatives over the delay, a move that Johnson dismissed<\/a> as \u201cpatently absurd\u201d and a bid for publicity.\n <\/p>\n

\n Grijalva filled the seat vacated by her father, the\u202flate Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva<\/a>, who represented the district in Congress for more than two decades before he died<\/a> after a battle with cancer in March. Running on the strength of her family name, she sailed to victory in the Democratic primary this summer and then defeated Republican Daniel Butierez in the special election, capturing roughly 70% of the vote.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s been a really long wait. Incredibly frustrating,\u201d Grijalva said on CNN on Monday.\n <\/p>\n

\n Grijalva said the hardest part about delaying her swearing in was being unable to help her constituents during the longest government shutdown in history.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI\u2019ve really missed the opportunity to be able to help constituents that are here that need services. So it\u2019s been very difficult to sit it out while people come up to me and ask me for help,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After 50 days of waiting, Rep. Adelita Grijalva was sworn into Congress Wednesday, bringing an end to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-279004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}