Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to swear in Grijalva, a Democrat, while the government is shut down, leaving the residents of her sprawling southern Arizona district without a vote in Congress — or help back home.
Grijalva would be the decisive 218th member to support a discharge petition and force a House vote on the Epstein files over the objections of Johnson and Trump.
Grijalva has asserted the delay is an attempt to block a vote on the Epstein files. Among her supporters, that’s a given.
Honest question here: does this actually matter given that the House has been on recess for like a month? Like, could she do anything if she were sworn in during this time?
- according to posts here she is not allowed to move into her office or access government data, so she can’t help constituents nor start getting up to speed.
- there’s an argument for whether they should be on recess. They could be trying to get things done.
- looking at published calendars from the before times, the House is supposed to be in session.
They are still being paid too… Kind of fucked to tell ATC to work unpaid and then go on paid leave.
Guess Arizonans won’t have to pay their Federal Income Tax for 2025 then. No taxation without representation, right?
No taxation without representation, right?
Doesn’t work that way. Puerto Rico, Samoa, Guam, Washington DC, etc pay federal taxes and don’t have representation.
IRS Code §933 is a little more complex than that. Income sourced within the territory isn’t required to be claimed while income sourced externally is.
My comment is related to rumblings among blue states being retaliated against by the current administration about soft secession.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/mass-middle-soft-secession-means-094720699.html
DC would like to have a word.
Oh yeah, let me just go tell my employer to stop withholding federal taxes and see how that goes.
I mean… You can literally do that at any point. You’d just owe the IRS at the end of the year. Many people prefer this as they consider withholding to be a free loan to the government.
I’m pretty sure you’d still have to make quarterly estimated payments in that case to avoid potential fines.
update your w-4 to “exempt”
And if this movement picks up enough to actually be effective, how do you think it works out?
You can only do that if you had no tax liability the previous year.
Katie Hobbs is a DINO; she’ll just roll over and do what the republicans want. She signed the porn ID bill into law FFS.
Nah, she’s exactly what we can expect from Dems. She’s not progressive, but other than the ID thing, she’s got a pretty good track record. Even that was a lost cause but I would have rather her not roll over. Anyway, she’s not perfect but a hell of a lot better than where we’re be if Lake won.
Speaker Johnson is a coward. Never seen such a spineless worm of a man in my life.
Stephen Miller?
Mikey ‘Mouse’ Johnson, Squeaker of the House
PHOENIX — Five weeks after Congresswoman-elect Adelita Grijalva’s landslide victory in a special election, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson continues to stonewall the Tucson Democrat on her swearing-in ceremony.
The U.S. Constitution could offer a workaround: Grijalva might not need Johnson to swear her in. A notary public could do it.
“The Constitution itself simply says you must take an oath to defend the Constitution before you’re sworn in, but it doesn’t say who has to administer that oath,” Thomas Berry, director of constitutional studies at the Cato Institute, said in an interview from Washington, D.C.
“Anyone, even a notary public, is perfectly qualified to administer a binding oath.”
EDIT: Note that while I don’t know whether legislators have always followed the convention for who administers their oath, I’m pretty sure I remember reading that Presidents have been sworn in by other people.
kagis
Ah hah.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_office_of_the_president_of_the_United_States
While the Constitution does not mandate that anyone in particular should administer the presidential oath of office, it has been administered by the chief justice beginning with John Adams, except following the death of a sitting president. George Washington was sworn into office during his first inauguration, on April 30, 1789, by Chancellor of New York Robert Livingston.[5][6] William Cranch, chief judge of the U.S. Circuit Court, administered the oath to Millard Fillmore on July 10, 1850, when he became president after the death of Zachary Taylor.[7] Upon being informed of Warren Harding’s death, while visiting his family home in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, Calvin Coolidge was sworn in as president by his father, John Calvin Coolidge Sr., a notary public.[8][9] Federal Judge Sarah T. Hughes administered the oath of office to Lyndon B. Johnson aboard Air Force One after John F. Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963; the only time a woman has administered the oath of office. Overall, the presidential oath has been administered by 15 chief justices (one of whom—William Howard Taft—was also a former president), one associate justice, four federal judges, two New York state judges, and one notary public.
Yeah, I was remembering LBJ being sworn in. And one was actually sworn in by a notary public, so…
EDIT3: Actually, I think I remember the Coolidge one too. There’s a photograph somewhere of the Air Force One swearing-in, if I recall, and some drawing or something of Coolidge being sworn in by candlelight.
kagis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_inauguration_of_Lyndon_B._Johnson
On Air Force One, 22 November 1963, Lyndon B. Johnson takes the oath of office as President of the United States following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy earlier in the day. Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff at bottom left holds a dictaphone to record the event. Left to Right: Mac Kilduff, Judge Sarah T. Hughes, Jack Valenti, Albert Thomas, Marie Fehmer (behind Thomas), Lady Bird Johnson, Chief Curry, President Lyndon B. Johnson, Evelyn Lincoln (eyeglasses only visible above LBJ’s shoulder), Homer Thornberry (in shadow, partially obscured by LBJ), Roy Kellerman (partially obscured by Thornberry), Lem Johns (partially obscured by Mrs. Kennedy), Jacqueline Kennedy, Pamela Tunure (behind Brooks), Jack Brooks, Bill Moyers (mostly obscured by Brooks).
I think this is the Coolidge image I remember. Apparently it was an oil lamp, not a candle:
https://www.politico.com/story/2011/08/coolidge-assumes-the-presidency-aug-3-1923-060502
I’d be curious to see what happens if House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries or some other officer of the House swears her in. Are they going to refuse to recognize her?
Not that it matters too much, they’re in a “district work period” until Nov 2nd.
Hey, just curious, what does “kagis” mean?
It’s googles but with kagi.com, a search engine
Kagi definitely hasn’t achieved verb status yet. I thought it was a foreign word or something.
Pretty interesting. I guess it depends in the end on what will be acceptable to the Congressional Budget Office. They hold the purse strings and a lot of the power in terms of actually providing services. Recognition by the house speaker would also be required for any votes.
When we get power we will never seat another MAGAt.
If by “we” you mean “democrats”, then LMAO they absolutely will roll the red carpet for fascists.
If you mean something else… Good!
Removed by mod
She’s got strong legs, whereas Vance’d be squirming in sogged sofa cushions days ago.
