Arizona’s Democratic senators pressed Mike Johnson on Wednesday to swear in their state’s newest representative, Adelita Grijalva, but the Republican House speaker refused to budge until funding for the government was restored.
Grijalva, a Democrat, last month won a special election to replace her late father, Raúl M Grijalva, in a southern Arizona House district. However, she has been unable to assume her new role because Johnson has not administered the oath of office.
On Wednesday afternoon, Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego, Arizona’s two Democratic senators, gathered to take questions from the press in front of the speaker’s office in the Capitol. Johnson soon arrived, and the Democrats pressed him on when Grijalva would be sworn in.
“We’re going to do that as soon as we get back to work, but we need the lights turned back on, so we encourage both of you to go open the government,” the speaker replied, according to video of the exchange.
Grijalva has told the Guardian that she believes Johnson is delaying her official start in the House because only one more signature is needed on a petition to force a vote on legislation requiring the release of files related to the late alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
When Gallego asked whether that was indeed the case, Johnson called the idea “totally absurd”.
“You guys are experts in red herrings and distraction,” he told the senators, later calling the encounter a “publicity stunt”.
The speaker also denied that Grijalva was being treated any differently from two Florida Republicans who won special elections earlier this year and were sworn in quickly.
“They had a scheduled day for the oath of office, and the House was called out of session that day. They had all their family and friends here, so we went ahead and went through the process,” Johnson said.
The argument took place as Democrats and Republicans remain at loggerheads over restarting government funding, which lapsed last Wednesday. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been furloughed, while national parks and government offices nationwide are closed or have reduced their services.
Republicans are demanding that Democrats support a bill to fund the government through 21 November, but the minority party has refused and instead demanded a number of healthcare-centered concessions.
The measure has already passed the House, and Johnson has kept the chamber out of session in an effort to pressure Senate Democrats into providing the eight votes it is expected to need to clear the upper chamber.
The encounter between Johnson and the Democratic senators was not the only confrontation to take place in the Capitol on Wednesday.
As he left a press conference, the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, was challenged by the Republican representative Mike Lawler, who demanded that he sign on to legislation that would extend for a year premium tax credits for Affordable Care Act plans – a major condition of the Democrats.
“We got a one-year extension. Why don’t we sign on right now?” asked Lawler, who had also briefly sparred with the Democratic senators outside Johnson’s office.
Lawler and Jeffries got into a minutes-long argument, according to video, that ended when the minority leader told the representative, a fellow New Yorker who is seen as vulnerable to losing re-election: “You’re embarrassing yourself and your district right now, and you’re going down to defeat next year.”
