Arizona AG sues Mike Johnson for refusing to swear in Democrat for weeks

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes filed a lawsuit against House Speaker Mike Johnson R-La on Tuesday following a continuous refusal by Johnson to seat Rep -elect Adelita Grijalva D-Ariz The -page lawsuit filed in Washington on Monday seeks to compel Johnson to swear in Grijalva or for another official in the House to do so Mayes warns that allowing Johnson to avoid seating Grijalva would thwart the will of voters This circumstance is about whether someone duly elected to the House who indisputably meets the constitutional qualifications of the office Mayers wrote in the filing may be denied her rightful office entirely because the Speaker has decided to keep the House out of regular session Related Adelita Grijalva wants to get to work The GOP won t let her Constitutional rights cannot be used as a bargaining chip Mayes wrote Mayes threatened Johnson with prompt legal action last week accusing the speaker of playing political games for failing to seat Grijalva Johnson called the lawsuit patently absurd when speaking with reporters Tuesday We run the House She has no jurisdiction Johnson mentioned of Mayes We re following the precedent She s looking for national publicity apparently she s gotten various of it but good luck with that Grijalva has protested Johnson s actions stating that there is so much that cannot be done while she waits to be sworn in So every moment that passes that I m not able to provide constituent services or be a voice for Arizona I cannot bring the issues forward that they send me here to do Grijalva disclosed at a press conference on Tuesday Officially Johnson explained his refusal to seat Grijalva as being a development of the cabinet shutdown leaving him unable to bring the House to session However Johnson previously stated that the Rep -elect can be sworn in as soon as she wants Critics accuse Johnson of avoiding the issue as Grijalva would be the final vote needed by a bipartisan procedural attempt to release incident files on sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein a no-go issue for multiple in the GOP in Washington Johnson has denied this saying that not seating Grijalva has nothing to do with the Epstein files Read more about Mike Johnson Using satire to make a point Johnson defends Trump s No Kings dump video Mike Johnson exploits shutdown to hide the Epstein files Mike Johnson s help may be eroding The post Arizona AG sues Mike Johnson for refusing to swear in Democrat for weeks appeared first on Salon com