House Speaker says Adelita Grijalva fine without oath, but she’s hamstrung

WASHINGTON – House Speaker Mike Johnson insisted that Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva already has all the privileges and access of any House member.

“The only thing she can’t do right now is vote on the floor,” he told CNN last week.

But the Republican speaker’s assertion doesn’t match up with the long list of perks and powers that will come to Grijalva once he relents and agrees to swear her in.

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The Tucson Democrat – elected five weeks ago in a landslide to fill her late father’s seat – now has a key and can use his old office in the Longworth House Office Building. But she has no congressional staff, no district office, no official website, no budget for flying back and forth from the 7th Congressional District and no salary.

She can’t even file or co-sponsor a bill.

“I can walk into the office, but I can’t actually do anything from it,” Grijalva told Cronkite News by phone. “It’s like having the title but none of the job.”

That jibes with information from the Office of Chief Administrative Officer, which oversees onboarding and logistics for newly elected House members.

Until Johnson swears her in – which he refuses to do until Senate Democrats accept the House GOP plan to temporarily fund and reopen the federal government – Grijalva remains locked out.

She has no official House email account, office phone number, official website or cell phone.

MORE: Lawsuit seeks to force swearing in of US Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva of Arizona

All of those are assigned only after a member takes the oath.

Once she’s official, she will also get a Members’ Representational Allowance, or MAR – about $1.9 million annually to pay staff and cover the cost of travel and other expenses.

She has been to the Capitol several times since her election Sept. 23 and each time she has had to go through metal detectors like a tourist, lobbyist or journalist – because she hasn’t been issued a House ID and lapel pin that lets lawmakers bypass security checkpoints.

“The system is supposed to make sure every district is represented. Right now, mine isn’t – and that’s not how it’s supposed to work,” she said.

After five weeks, Grijalva has forfeited $17,000 of the $174,000 annual congressional salary, since she won’t go on the payroll until she formally joins the House.

Grijalva said the House administrative staffers seem confused by her situation.

“At one point, someone handed me a bag of cellphones that belonged to my dad’s old staff. I didn’t really know what I was supposed to do with those.”

Raúl Grijalva, elected to 12 terms starting in 2002, died in March from cancer.

As far as flights between Arizona and Washington, his daughter says she has dipped into her personal stash of frequent flyer miles.

Johnson says the House will not conduct any business until the shutdown impasse is resolved. He has kept the House out of session since Sept. 19, except for brief pro forma sessions at which he has refused demands from Democrats to swear in Grijalva.

“She could be on the phone all day long, as the rest of us are, trying to help her constituents navigate through it. It’s a bit of a red herring for her to say there’s nothing for her to do,” he said last week.

It’s usually aides, not lawmakers themselves, who guide constituents through red tape and Grijalva has none on the payroll yet.

Nor have she and her future staff gotten ethics and constituent-service training yet.

“I don’t feel comfortable engaging with people’s personal information without the proper training on how to do so,” she said. “It could even expose me legally.”

New members elected in a November election go through a group orientation within weeks run by the House Administration Committee. The multi-day program covers everything from hiring staff and securing office space to learning House procedures and ethics rules.

For those elected in a special election, like Grijalva, there’s no established schedule.

Republicans, deflecting Democrats’ complaints about the ongoing delay, have yet to cite an instance of anyone waiting more than 25 days to be sworn in. Tuesday will mark 35 for Grijalva.

“What does my orientation look like?” she said. “I’d love to know.”

Last week, the state of Arizona filed a lawsuit seeking to compel Johnson to seat Grijalva, hours after Grijalva made a second attempt to take the oath by appearing on the House floor without the speaker’s invitation.

The lawsuit alleges that Johnson is illegally refusing to seat Grijalva, effectively silencing the more than 813,000 residents in her district that stretches along the U.S.-Mexico border and denying the state full representation in Congress.

Democrats assert that Johnson is stalling because Grijalva intends to sign a petition that would force a floor vote on the Epstein files.

For now, she said she’s doing what she can – meeting informally with community leaders and waiting.

“Everyone here assumes I know my way around because of who my dad was,” Grijalva said. “They treat me like I’ve been doing this for years, but I’m brand new — and right now, I can’t do the work people sent me here to do.”

This article first appeared on Cronkite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.