Speaker Johnson has said repeatedly he’ll swear her in after the shutdown ends.
October 22, 2025, 6:46 AM
The State of Arizona sued the House of Representatives on Tuesday over Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision to not swear in Rep-elect Adelita Grijalva until after the government shutdown ends.
“This case is about whether someone duly elected to the House — who indisputably meets the constitutional qualifications of the office — may be denied her rightful office simply because the Speaker has decided to keep the House out of ‘regular session,'” the lawsuit states. “If the Speaker were granted that authority, he could thwart the peoples’ choice of who should represent them in Congress by denying them representation for a significant portion of the two-year term provided by the Constitution.”
Grijalva won a special election on Sept. 23 in Arizona’s 7th District to succeed her father, the late Rep. Raul Grijalva who died in March, four days after Johnson dismissed lawmakers following House passage of the clean continuing resolution to fund the government.
While the question has followed the speaker throughout the shutdown, Johnson has shrugged off the delay, denying that his decision is related to Grijalva’s intent to become the 218 signature on a discharge petition forcing a vote to release the Department of Justice’s full Jeffrey Epstein file.
The lawsuit comes after Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes demanded in a letter sent last week that Johnson swear in Grijalva.
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The AG is leading the lawsuit, which was filed in the District of Columbia.
In a statement posted on X, Grijalva wrote: “@AZAGMayes and I are going to court to ensure that 800,000+ Arizonans in AZ-07 are no longer silenced. @SpeakerJohnson’s obstruction has gone far beyond petty partisan politics — it’s an unlawful breach of our Constitution and the democratic process.”
Johnson has repeatedly said he will not swear in Grijalva until the government is reopened.
ABC News’ John Parkinson contributed to this report.
