As the longest government shutdown in U.S. history dragged on over the last several weeks, one lawmaker was at the center of it — even though she hadn’t officially been sworn in as a lawmaker yet: Adelita Grijalva.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson refused to swear her in until the government was reopened — sparking outcry from her fellow Democrats and even some Republicans.
Arizona’s U.S. Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego got into a public spat with Johnson in the halls of the Capitol, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes sued over it and pressure mounted.
But Grijalva wasn’t sworn in until after the government was officially reopened on Nov. 12.
“One individual should not be able to unilaterally obstruct the swearing-in of a duly elected member of Congress for political reasons,” she said.
So now that she’s in office and getting to work, what is at the top of her agenda? I got a hold of Arizona’s newest congresswoman on Tuesday to find out — beginning with one of the first official acts she took in office: visiting a remote part of the border in her district where part of the border wall is being built.
Full conversation
ADELITA GRIJALVA: I thought it was really important to actually go see what it was that Trump was doing through the San Rafael Valley. It’s something that all environmentalists — I mean, so many organizations and groups have been against the construction of the wall there because there is migration that happens there, but it’s of animals and wildlife.
It really has nothing to do with people because it’s so remote. And the only thing happening there is construction. So I wanted to show people across the nation and definitely in CD7, like, this is what Trump is doing, spending millions and millions of dollars for a completely useless border wall that is going to do nothing to fix our broken immigration system.
LAUREN GILGER: So obviously your father was an environmental advocate, very outspoken on these issues. You got a seat now on the House Natural Resources Committee, which he had chaired. It sounds continue his work on this front.
GRIJALVA: Absolutely do. I was very honored. My dad worked for decades on a bill called Environmental Justice for All. It’s something now I’m very excited that I’ll be able to work to reintroduce. Basically just requires robust consultation with tribal and other communities that stand to be impacted by mining and other projects that could hurt the environment.
And it was unfortunate one of the first things in Natural Resources Committee was trying to work around NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act, and just do everything they can to take the teeth out of that. So we had to fight against a lot of different fronts.
But on that specific committee, I was really happy, and so were many tribes. I received a lot of love from all across the nation for my involvement.
GILGER: That’s interesting. Any specific environmental battles in Arizona you want to highlight? I mean, we’re watching mining potentially in Oak Flat, near the Grand Canyon as well. There’s the border wall you mentioned. There’s issues of public lands, there’s springs that are drying up, water rights issues. What are you watching first?
GRIJALVA: Literally all of the above. Oak Flat, protecting Oak Flat is very important. Even though it’s technically not in my district, it’s so adjacent and will have a real impact throughout the district. And also Patagonia and the mining project there. I mean, really, it has to do with a lot of mining and the fact that we have many examples throughout Arizona of what mining has done to devastate our environment, to leave cancer clusters, to pollute our air and water and land.
And so minimally we have to work to update that mining law but protect those areas right now.
GILGER: The border wall is an environmental issue that you were highlighting, but it’s also a symbol of immigration. And that’s such a hot button topic right now. We’ve seen the Trump administration going into U.S. cities and conducting raids, arresting and deporting and detaining people in immigrant communities. A lot of fear in immigrant communities.
What are you seeing in your district? What are you hearing from folks?
GRIJALVA: Literally, I just had a meeting with the mayor of Tucson where we were talking about what are the scenarios that happen if Trump sends more ICE agents into our area? When you look at what has happened this year with militarizing ICE, allowing them to target our immigrant communities, to be able to scapegoat us. If we look a certain way, we talk a certain way, we have a labor kind of job, we can be pulled over for any reason.
And the fact that the courts are not protecting people, our communities are put in that position where we have to do more of that. We’ve seen that across the nation, and we’re worried about it here.
GILGER: So I want to ask you, I mean, all of these issues are important, but it seems that the politically expedient issue right now for Democrats has got to be affordability, right? I wonder, what do you think lawmakers can do to affect this issue, to bring down prices? Is this out of the control of government policy, or do you think there are concrete things that you will be talking about as Democrats to try to bring the issue of affordability home?
GRIJALVA: I mean, the biggest issue right now is tariffs. And that is something that’s apparently just the discretion, sole discretion of Trump. So when we look at that kind of cost, it’s an increase that definitely impacts our pocketbooks.
Systemically, there’s absolutely policy that can help working people. When we don’t target things like affordable housing, when we don’t target things like our public education system, when we’re not looking at how much it’s costing day after day without an increase in the minimum wage, those are things that we have complete control over in Congress and can work to improve in policy.
We see it at the local level, but there are so many ways that the federal system is hurting people. When you look at the kind of cuts that this administration has done on programs that actually help the most vulnerable in our communities, that’s where we’re going to see an increase in unhoused populations — small families, single parents that are going to be out on the street because the program that they were involved in is no longer there. Or the workforce development grants that have all been cut from our community colleges.
I mean, those direct impacts, you can feel them in our communities. And you know when they say, “Well, we’re doing what we can to cut taxes.” Right. But you’re balancing that, those cuts, on the backs of working people every single time.
GILGER: OK, so let me ask you lastly, congresswoman, given what happened here with your very delayed swearing in to your seat in Congress, will you be exploring changes to House procedure to kind of prevent that from happening again?
GRIJALVA: Absolutely. And there has to be some nonpartisan support to ensure that that doesn’t happen again. Because when you think about that, 50 days broke a record, but now that it’s been broken, the next time when they wait 65 or 70, it might not be that big of a deal, policy-wise at the D.C. level.
But here locally, we’re in a conference room right now in D.C. waiting for our Internet and our phones to be turned on. We just signed a lease last week because all of the services here locally, we haven’t been able to roll out. But the need has continued to increase. So just from the date I was sworn in, today we have 45 cases that need constituent services.
Our constituent services team just received their government email last Friday. So there there are logistical holdups that are hurting the constituents that are here in district. So we have to make sure that this never happens again to another person.
GILGER: So let me ask you one more big-picture question here. Because of this delay, because of this kind of back and forth and the government shutdown and your role in that, your name has become much more well known probably than it might have been if you were just sworn in as usual, as one of many, many congresspeople in Washington.
What do you want to do with this moment in the spotlight? Do you see it that way? Like as this kind of unusual chance that you get to really speak out and you know, lots of people for a minute here will hear what you have to say.
GRIJALVA: Yeah, I think what I really want to do is focus on the issues that southern Arizona sent me to Congress to fight for. Our little big district over here in Arizona is actually a microcosm, I think, of the nation. We have urban areas, rural areas. We have farming issues, water issues, environment issues, immigration, affordability and really protecting our democracy.
So any opportunity that I have to amplify and get more services to southern Arizona, I’m going to. And I’m going to continue to talk about the issues that people elected me and voted for me to fight for. And I believe that they’re resonating really well in general with the American people.
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