Copyright The New York Times
Starting a new job can be hard. And stressful. You want to hit the ground running. You want to make a good first impression. You want to reassure the people who hired you that they made the right decision. At this point, Adelita Grijalva, the Democratic representative-elect from Arizona, is just grateful to have a key to her office — even if it took a few weeks and a lot of complaining to get it. What would be even better now would be if she could get an operating budget to pay for things like office supplies and travel. She would also like access to the House’s secure databases. And she’d love one of those lapel pins that help members move freely about the Capitol. Because of ID delays, she so far hasn’t even been able to “get into the building after hours,” she told me in a phone interview from her home in Tucson last week. These all seem like modest asks for a member of Congress. Ms. Grijalva won a special election over a month ago to succeed her father, Raúl Grijalva, who died in March. The outcome was not close — she pulled nearly 70 percent of the vote. Yet she remains unable to fully serve her district, because the Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, refuses to swear her in. To be clear, Ms. Grijalva has asked to be sworn in. Repeatedly. She has, in fact, become a burr in Mr. Johnson’s bum. She has written him a letter and left him messages requesting a meeting. She has gone on the political talk shows to plead her case. She has posted a series of cheeky social media videos. In one, she takes viewers on a tour of her Washington office, detailing some of the many tasks she could not yet do. She has asked voters to sign a petition and to phone the speaker’s office protesting the delay.
