Taxation Without Representation

A district spoke, and power stalled. When voters in Arizona’s 7th chose Adelita Grijalva, the oath never came—leaving more than 800,000 people without a voice for 50 days. We take you inside the legal fight to end the delay, the constitutional questions it raised, and the very real ways a shutdown and a locked office can silence a community that did everything right at the ballot box.

Adelita shares the ground truth: pro forma sessions that swore in others but not her, long security lines without the member’s pin, no email or phones, and a stack of constituent cases with nowhere to go. From veterans benefits and immigration emergencies to Social Security help, the gears of government froze for an entire district. We talk through why that matters far beyond Arizona—because if a Speaker can pause representation, every voter is one procedural tactic away from losing their seat at the table.

We also dig into the bipartisan outrage, from conservative legal voices to longtime progressives, and why a simple, automatic swearing-in rule could prevent abuse regardless of which party holds the gavel. Then we connect the dots to the Epstein files and a discharge petition designed to force transparency, centering survivors’ rights over partisanship. Adelita explains the push for full disclosure, accountability for anyone implicated, and how Congress can reclaim its role while honoring separation of powers.

If you care about fair representation, clean process, and real services reaching real people, this story matters. Hit play, learn what changed, and see what comes next. If the conversation resonates, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find it.

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_07 (00:05):
Hi, and welcome back to Pant Suits and Lawsuits,
everybody, the podcast keepingyou up to date and informed on
all things legal and our currentpolitical and legal landscape.
I am Arizona Attorney GeneralChris Mays, and this week uh we
are missing A.G.
Dana Nessel, but I am in I amjoined by a very special guest.

SPEAKER_02 (00:30):
Hi everyone, I'm Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva.

SPEAKER_07 (00:33):
And on today's episode episode, join us for a
conversation with CongresswomanGrijalva as we go over her
unprecedented path to the Hilland what this fight was all
about, our constitution, ourright to representation, and
yes, even about the upstatefiles.

SPEAKER_02 (00:57):
Let's get to it.

SPEAKER_04 (01:08):
Two weeks after winning a special election
decisively in Arizona's 7thCongressional District,
Democratic Congresswoman-electAdelita Grijalva still hasn't
been sworn into office.

SPEAKER_06 (01:33):
The Republican speaker was pressed about it.

SPEAKER_00 (01:44):
House Speaker Mike Johnson has yet to swear her in
due to the ongoing shift.

SPEAKER_01 (01:59):
Johnson has to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_03 (02:01):
In a major escalation tonight, Attorney
General of Arizona andCongresswoman-elect Adelita
Grijalva of Arizona are suingMike Johnson.
And they're suing him becauseGrahalva has not been sworn in.
So what does all this have to dowith Jeffrey Epstein?
Because it does at its heart.
Graholva is the final voteneeded for a bipartisan maneuver

(02:22):
called a discharge petition thatgoes around Johnson.
Goes around Johnson because hedoes not want a vote to release
the Epstein files.
This would go around him, getthat vote to release the files.

SPEAKER_05 (02:33):
Late today, State Attorney General sued the
Speaker of the House over hisrefusal to swear in a duly
elected member of Congress.
And in that lawsuit, ArizonaAttorney General Chris Mays did
not mince words at all.

Her lawsuit reads (02:45):
quote, This case is about whether someone
duly elected to the House, whoindisputably meets the
constitutional qualifications ofthe office, may be denied her
rightful office simply becausethe Speaker has decided to keep
the House out of regularsession.
If the Speaker were granted thatauthority, he could thwart the
people's choice of who shouldrepresent them in Congress by

(03:08):
denying them representation fora significant portion of the
two-year term provided by theConstitution.
Goes on to say, fortunately, theConstitution does not give the
authority.

SPEAKER_02 (03:18):
It has been fifty days since the people of
Arizona's 7th CongressionalDistrict elected me to represent
them.
50 days that over 800,000Arizonans have been left without
access to the basic servicesthat every constituent deserves.

(03:39):
This is an abuse of power.
One individual should not beable to unilaterally obstruct
the swearing in of a dulyelected member of Congress for
political reasons.

SPEAKER_07 (04:19):
She's an advocate and a resident of Southern
Arizona.
She has been active in Arizona,first serving at the school
board level, and most recentlyon the Pima County Board of
Supervisors, becoming just thesecond woman and the first
Latina to serve as chair.

(04:40):
You are also the first Latinamember of Congress, correct?

SPEAKER_02 (04:44):
From Arizona, yes, I am.

SPEAKER_07 (04:46):
Indeed.
And uh she is the daughter, as Isaid, of Representative Ro
Grijalva, who was a giant inArizona politics.
We lost in March.
And it is really my pleasure tointroduce um my friend in
Arizona's newest representative,Congresswoman, Adelita Grahalva.
I love the sound of that afterso long fighting to be able to

(05:11):
say that.
Uh, how are you?
Thank you for joining us onpantsuits and lawsuits.

SPEAKER_02 (05:16):
Well, thank you.
And thank you, I have to say,thank you so much for your
support.
What I loved is, you know, therewere so many people here
supporting me in districtsupporting me, and they're like,
You're attorney general.
I'm like, I know, right?
I love her.
Because you're like, this isnot, I mean, it's not personal.
I mean, I think that you'regreat and you're great at your
job, but the reason why isbecause you focus what you're

(05:39):
doing on advocating for Arizona.
And in this case, it's like CD7hasn't had a voice in like from
the time I was elected.
Before then, my dad passed awayin March.
And so nobody working onlegislation.
And so every day was just adelay in silencing our
community, and it was not okay.
And so I so much depreciatedyou, your willingness to like,

(06:03):
we're gonna do this together.
And um, I do think it had it, Ihad an I think it had an impact.
It still didn't happen asquickly as we wanted.
And the biggest issue for me isthat I don't think that the
House of Representatives shouldbe taking direction from the
judicial brands.
I get that, but absent any kindof leadership here, that's what

(06:24):
it's there for.
So I do think ultimately, hadthe had the case gone forward,
it would have been successful.
But now I feel it's my job tomake sure that legislation is in
place to prevent this from everhappening to anyone else.

SPEAKER_07 (06:37):
Oh, I think yeah, I'd love to hear about that.
And so true.
And yeah, you're right.
I mean, ultimately, though, welove you, and you're gonna you
are an amazing member ofCongress.
It was about your constituents,right?
The 813,000 constituents thatwent without representation, and
you now hold the record for thelongest delay in seeding a

(07:00):
member of Congress following aspecial election.
I mean, can give our viewers uhand listeners a sense of that
timeline as those days draggedon.
What did it feel like?
What was it?

SPEAKER_02 (07:14):
You know, I was elected on September 23rd, and
there are a couple ofopportunities for us to um like
we had this time where Ithought, okay, I'm gonna get
sworn in.
There's, you know, it's it's notit's a pro forma session, which
basically means there's nothinghappening as far as there's no

(07:35):
scheduled votes, but you cantake action, you can commit to
you know, doing something at anext session, all of that.
And so I thought, becauseSpeaker Johnson had sworn in two
Republicans that were alsoelected in a special, right, and
pour them in on a pro formasession that I would that would
be my reality too.

(07:55):
And so when that didn't happen,and there was no clear
explanation as to why, it's justwell, we don't do that.
Well, okay.
Even if you literally just did,it's okay.
And so I thought, all right,October 7th.
And then, you know, he closeddown the house and it was dark.

(08:16):
And every pro-forma session, Ihad another member of Congress
going up and advocating for me,whether it was Representative
Steton or RepresentativeMcGovern or Representative
Ranking Member Raskin.
I mean, every every time that wewould meet, somebody else was
screaming.
So I'm like, okay, I appreciatethe support, but the back and
forth with like no end in sight,it was very frustrating.

(08:39):
And, you know, then to have thespeaker say really disparaging
things about me, never havingcommunicated with me at all, and
talking about what I should bedoing and that the rules are not
different for her.
You're like, you literally shutdown the house for 50 days, the
longest down in history, andtalking about me not working,

(09:04):
you know, when what how wenormally do things?
It was really surreal.

SPEAKER_07 (09:08):
And so that could have been the worst part.
It's like, really?
You know, and then I think atsome point he said, What did he
say about you?
Bless your heart.

SPEAKER_02 (09:18):
Bless her heart.

SPEAKER_07 (09:20):
Yeah, it's like it, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 (09:22):
Y'all know what that means.
Yes.
If you're using a hand, it'ssomething somewhere in the
middle area.
Like, that's what it felt like.
And then just you know, thethings I could and couldn't do.
But anyone who's in any electedoffice or anyone who's in at a
nonprofit organization at anykind of business, if you don't
have a budget, you can't doanything.

(09:45):
And worse here in Congress,because if you don't have this
pin, yeah, you you don't haveit.
This is literally like when yougo to Disneyland in the fast
pass.
That's what this feels likehere.
It doesn't have the same effectin in state, but here it's like
you get to go through securityquicker.
You have an elevator that'sdifferent because you're always
rushing back and forth.

(10:05):
So it really did hamstring alot.

SPEAKER_07 (10:07):
Well, talk, yeah, talk a little bit more about
that because that's a kind ofback behind the scenes uh detail
that I think our viewers wouldlove to hear about.
Like what, you know, I Iremember seeing the amazing
videos that you did where youwent into, I was so funny, but
not funny.
Yeah.
You went into your office andtried to use the the copy
machine and the computers, butyou couldn't actually because

(10:30):
you didn't have an emailaddress.
I mean, what obviously you can'tvote, but what other kinds of
things uh could you not dobecause he had not sworn?

SPEAKER_02 (10:39):
Oh, there is um, I couldn't vote, couldn't have
didn't have access to any of thelaptops.
One of the dates that they werehere, he brought people out of
um they were furloughed, and hebrought people out of furlough
to come and help me.
They brought a bag, like amanila folder of cell phones
from the staff that were herewith my dad.

(11:01):
Wow.
And said, Oh, here's cellphones.
I'm like, where the numbers, orhow do you unlock these?
And they're like, we don't know.
We were just told to give youthe cell phone.
So it was this whole, it wasjust a big farce and it was just
a charade of like, see, we gaveyou a cell phone.
I'm like, but I don't know how,I mean, it's not mine.
I don't know phone numbers.
What am I supposed to do withthis?

(11:22):
Um, and there were a lot ofother things that, you know,
when you anytime you'retraveling, you can use your
budget to offset that.
So, like Uber's and you know,all of the stuff, I didn't have
any of that access to any of it.
So all of that was out ofpocket.
And people would say, well, youcould use your campaign account.
No, that's not what peopledonated to my campaign for.

(11:44):
So I do that right.
So it was just trying tonavigate that um process.
And it was a it was difficult.
And then when you come in thebuilding, you know, there's
heightened security.
And so you have to takeliterally everything off.
So I mean, this bracelet my dadgave me, I wear it all the time.
I have, I mean, it was likethat.

(12:04):
It was, it was a little bit moreamplified than normal um TSA
when you're going into a flight.
So when we're going there, goingthrough that, it's like I didn't
have any, I was elect, whichhere means nothing.
You're like, yeah, you're goingto, you'll get invited to
meetings, but I didn't knowwhere to go.
I had to be escorted in byanother member of Congress.

(12:25):
Yes, another member of Congresswas walking, and I thought, can
I hook a ride with you?
So we're walking in becausenobody, they're not going to let
me in without somebody else kindof vouching for me.
Yeah.
And it was, it, it was very,that part was very frustrating.
And then when I'd have meetings,I would try to not leave the
building.
Like there's a series ofdifferent ways you can go to the

(12:46):
Capitol, you can go to thecanon.
I'm in the Longworth, you can goto Rayburn, and they're all
connected underneath throughlike tunnels.
You can use, I would try to usethat because if I left the
building to come back in becauseit was a shutdown, there was
only one entrance, and the waitwas usually 20 minutes, which
would mean that I would missmeetings.

SPEAKER_07 (13:05):
Yeah, sure.
I mean what a nightmare.
So I mean, one of the thingsthat that you know, we were
concerned, obviously, we we tooklegal action, you and I
together.
We sued uh the how theRepublican House of

(13:26):
Representatives, and you know,um Mike Johnson, et cetera.
Um, not directly Mike Johnsonfor for uh strategic reasons.
But I mean, I think one of thereasons in addition to just
wanting to get you seated sothat you could represent your
constituents on a whole host ofimportant issues, um, was a

(13:48):
concern about whether they mighttry to do this in 2026.
I mean, if they were if theywere allowed to do this to you,
you know, I had a lot of folks,you know, just regular
constituents say, hey, can'tthey do this in 2026 to try to,
you know, essentially block anelection?
Uh speak to that.

SPEAKER_02 (14:09):
Like you know, it was so unprecedented that all of
those hypotheticals that beforeyou used to think, well, that
will never happen.
Right.
Now it's it it's very much realand tangible because it's it
already did.
We were in the longest shutdownin history.
We I they now that now thecutoff is 50 days.

(14:30):
And so if you know, if SpeakerJohnson or whoever the speaker
is decides not to swear in aduly elected member, there's
precedent now.
So that has to change.
And it's one of the things thatI've said repeatedly, we
actually have language that iswith legal in looking at how do
we prevent this, regardless ofparty.

(14:50):
Like you should be the nextbefore the session.

SPEAKER_07 (14:54):
That's an important point because you know, what's
to stop Democrats from doingthis in the future?
You know, if the Republicans doit, then the Democrats could do
it.
I mean, so that your legislationwould stop that on both.

SPEAKER_02 (15:05):
And my hope, and my hope it would be bipartisan,
because what I really think isimportant that we shouldn't have
other people telling the Househow to do its business.
You should just, there should beparameters and guidelines.
And so many people, like SpeakerAmerita Pelosi said, that's just
a very long time to make anyonewait.
I just never thought thatanything like this would happen.

(15:27):
And here we are.
So my hope is that we can moveforward in ensuring that
regardless of who is elected,once a community speaks, that is
that is what we should allimplement, regardless of
whether, unless they havecommitted a crime or some other
really egregious thing, andthere's a reason why they

(15:47):
shouldn't be in office.
But this this was crazy and itreally can't happen again.

SPEAKER_07 (15:54):
From Tim Sandifer at the Goldwater Institute to more
Marjorie Taylor Green, a lot oforganizations and individuals,
uh, even on the right, wereequally supportive of you being
sworn in.

SPEAKER_02 (16:07):
I'm sure that was uh a little weird to to to know
that uh everybody The GoldwaterInstitute, which I have opposed
almost everything that they'vesaid, said, yeah, she should be
sworn in.
I'm like, well, well, then youknow, we've crossed over into
another multiverse with ouragreement.

SPEAKER_07 (16:23):
Must be doing something right.
So um why do you think this wassuch an appealing bipartisan
issue?
Why do you think people spokeout against their own majority
leader in support of you andyour your lawsuit?
And were you hearing privatelyfrom a lot of Republicans?

SPEAKER_02 (16:40):
Yeah.
No, um, I was surprised thatthere was vocal outreach, like
people that were like beingpublic on, you know, news
stories and that kind of thing,saying, Yeah, no, she should
have been sworn in a long timeago.
That I mean, that basicallyshows how wrong it was.

SPEAKER_07 (17:07):
People all over the state of Arizona were outraged
because we were basicallydeprived of our ninth uh member
of Congress.
We have nine.
We were down to eight, down toeight when you were not being uh
seated.
But I want to read yousomething.
Um Craig Miller from theNorthwest Side of Tucson uh
wrote the following letter tothe other uh into the Arizona

(17:28):
Daily Star.
He said, quote, one of thecauses of the American
Revolution was taxation withoutrepresentation.
I believe Adelita Grijalva'sconstituents should be exempt
from federal taxes for theamount of time they are without
representation due to SpeakerJohnson's refusal to seat her,
end quote.
So, I mean, why why do you thinkuh people felt so strongly that

(17:51):
their constitutional rights werebeing affected?
It was in a very poignantletter.

SPEAKER_02 (17:55):
I think one of the arguments that Speaker Johnson
made was, well, we're in ashutdown, and so it shouldn't
matter.
I mean, you're we're not votinganyway.
But there's so many things thatreally the bulk of what I think
a good member of Congress doesis provide services to their
constituents.
Right.
And literally still, because ofthat delay, I mean, everything

(18:18):
sort of takes a long time.
So just to give you an idea, ourphones in the district office
are getting turned on tomorrow.

SPEAKER_07 (18:26):
Wow.

SPEAKER_02 (18:27):
Members of right.
There are only tomorrow?
Tomorrow.
Right.
There, so once we finally signedthe agreement, and again,
remember that it's not just Iget to sign and it's done.
It has to go through legalchannels.
I mean, there's security thathas to go through the capital
police, have to go through thespace to make sure it's okay.
I mean, there are all thesethings that it's not as easy as

(18:49):
it was when I was at the countyand you could just say, yeah,
we're gonna do this.
It's fine, we're done.
As long as it's not illegal,we're good to go.
That's not the case here.
So we had, just to give you anidea, from September 23rd
through November 11th, therewere over um almost like 300
people reached out to the officeto put in a request for

(19:13):
constituent services.
Those people, we still don'thave access to their information
because that was the uh, I thinkit's like the um office of the
capital administration orsomething like that.
They have access to that andthey still haven't turned that
over yet, probably because wedidn't have emails set up and

(19:34):
they can't sort of hand thatstuff over yet.
But even from November 11ththrough last week, we had 43.
Wow.
Yeah, and those were coming.

SPEAKER_07 (19:44):
343.

SPEAKER_02 (19:46):
Yep.
And that's just and and thosewere people who took the
initiative to try to find it.
I mean, remember, we just got anlike a website up.

SPEAKER_07 (19:55):
Right.

SPEAKER_02 (20:00):
site or whole campaign site dropping things
off at our for at ourheadquarters people reaching out
on Facebook and Instagram andgoing to my mom and dad's house.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (20:12):
Going to your mom and dad's house, really.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (20:15):
Yeah.
Because people are used togoing, they know where my dad
lived.
And that he he was that type ofrepresentative.
Like you literally felt like youcould knock on the door.
And a lot of people did.

SPEAKER_07 (20:28):
And and you know, I think about the the you know the
um outreach you could havegotten that you might want to
send my way, you know, to lawenforcement or to our consumer
uh fraud section to help peoplewith consumer fraud issues.
All the things that you would doas a member of Congress or I
would do as an AG if I've got anissue I need to send your way.

(20:50):
I can't do that if you're inoffice or not in office yet.
So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (20:54):
Or legislation that we need to push through things I
want to co-sponsor.
I mean the next the nextavailable date that I could I
co-sponsored 35 bills.
They're like, I think you brokea record.
I'm like well I had to be doingsomething over the last 50 days.
I was reading like yep I want toco-sponsor that I want to
co-sponsor this as soon as I gota voting card and an account I

(21:17):
was like okay we're off to theraces here.

SPEAKER_07 (21:30):
Well I we couldn't uh possibly end this
conversation with talking aboutthe reason that Mike Johnson
didn't want to swear you in umdo you think it had to do with
the Epstein files uh petitionand can you let our viewers know
where all of that stands?

SPEAKER_02 (21:51):
So right now um Trump has directed the DOJ to
release as many files aspossible according to the White
House.
I don't have a lot of faith inthe White House and their word
because Trump said if elected onday one he would release the
files and he had to be compelledby a discharge petition from the

(22:14):
House and a vote in the Senatein order to sign it into law.
So this is not, I mean he couldhave done this without a vote of
the House.
So I'm very concerned about whatwe're actually going to see.
But right now we're just hopingfor the kind of transparency
that everyone is asking for.
And you know people say wellwhat if Democrats are are

(22:35):
implicated?
I don't care who I don't carewhat party they are if they
committed crimes againstchildren and women they deserve
the legal consequences that arecoming and the survivors deserve
justice and then an opportunityto finally be able to move on
from this.
I mean I can't imagine for and Italked to the two of the

(22:59):
survivors I cannot imaginehaving to relive your story over
and over and over again and havepeople online criticize the
validity criticize you know whatthey're saying what they're you
know well it didn't seem tobother them too much.
They seem to be living a goodlife I'm like stop I mean to me

(23:20):
that is just some of the mostunconscionable sort of things
that I've seen and heard likethis was a child.
And then you have someone on thenews that has quite a big
following saying it wasn'tillegal.
They just liked younger which isso good.

SPEAKER_07 (23:37):
That is the most disgusting thing I've ever heard
ever I just I cannot and andAdelina these are these are
Republicans who claim to believein victims' rights you know uh
and and who are all about andand you know we do a lot of
victims' rights work here at theAG's office.
We work with victims all thetime we support them it's part

(23:58):
of our constitution in here inArizona um we have a victims
bill of rights and and theseRepublicans claim to believe it
and yet they turn around andthey don't listen to these
Epstein victims and theydownplay what they went through.

SPEAKER_02 (24:13):
And you're right it's disgusting it really is I
mean try to explain that I haveyou know my daughter's 18 she's
going to be 19 later this monthmy son is 17 and my youngest is
14 and try to explain to themwhat these people went through
and how long they have beenadvocating for some justice and

(24:36):
the fact that they reached outto law enforcement they reached
out to the they've done all ofthe right things and it took you
know this Chicana from Tucson tolike okay fine we're waiting to
sign this discharge petitionlet's get her done and that I
feel was why we got so muchattention and why Trump had to

(24:57):
had to finally say yeah you knowI'm encouraging everyone
everyone should sign on to thisdischarge petition never
explaining why he didn't do ithimself why he didn't just
release everything himself.
Never here we go.

SPEAKER_07 (25:11):
Yeah well I know your dad would be and is so
proud of you but I also knowthat you are going to be a
leading voice in what theDemocratic AGs want to see which
is Congress standing up foritself and its separation of
powers and your prerogatives andand stopping Donald Trump from

(25:35):
violating the separation ofpowers so you are going to be I
know right there in that fight.
I signed on to that dischargepetition too so I'd after the
Epstein files the next day Isigned on to seven other
discharge seven you were indeedready to go so that is uh that

(26:01):
is all the time we have today Iwant to thank uh Congresswoman
Grijalva for being with us andum thanks for everybody for
tuning in to this episodeepisode of Pan Suits and
Lawsuits.
Thanks Adelita for jumping inand giving our viewers an
awesome behind the scenesrecounting of one of the most

(26:23):
remarkable episodes of uhcongressional American history
um and uh pant suits andlawsuits will be back uh soon uh
with more from your uh uh yourfavorite uh attorneys general
including Michigan's Dana Nesselbe sure to follow our
departments on social media forthe latest updates about the

(26:46):
work that we are each doing inArizona and Michigan and be sure
to subscribe subscribe uh anduntil next time uh be safe
everybody thanks so much