WELL DONE ARIZONA!!! Rep Grijalva, you are most welcome to the Antifa fight to save our democratic Republic, we know you will make your father and Arizona proud! And we know you will be among the Progressives in the House who will keep Jeffries and Schumer from enabling the drumpf / trump-vance administration and the gop / greed over people-republican party from imposing their authoritarian theocratic oligarchy.
Democrats further narrow GOP’s House majority with Arizona special election win
Adelita Grijalva is the projected winner of the race to fill her father’s congressional seat, trimming a Republican House majority that was already historically small.
Democrat Adelita Grijalva is the projected winner of the special election Tuesday in Arizona’s 7th Congressional District, further narrowing the already razor-thin Republican House majority.
Grijalva defeated Republican Daniel Butierez, a small-business owner, according to an Associated Press projection. The former Pima County supervisor entered the race as the heavy favorite after handily winning the Democratic primary and raising significantly more money than Butierez in the campaign to fill the seat of her father, Democratic Rep. Raúl Grijalva, who died earlier this year.
Here are some takeaways from her victory:
An already narrow Republican majority grows even slimmer
Once Grijalva is sworn in, Democrats will hold 214 seats in the House to Republicans’ 219. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) has at times struggled to hold his conference together, facing some rebellion on issues such as the debt ceiling and the release of files from the investigation into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Republicans can lose just two votes from their conference and still pass legislation.
Grijalva’s victory comes on the heels of Democrat James Walkinshaw winning a special election in Virginia, and two more special elections are scheduled for later this year to replace Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Texas), who died on March 5, and Rep. Mark Green (R-Tennessee), who resigned on July 20. The special elections will be held Nov. 4 and Dec. 2, respectively.
The House might have to vote on releasing the Epstein files
While Democrats are likely to be glad to have another vote in the House, Grijalva might be greeted warmly by an unlikely figure: Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), who, alongside Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California), is collecting signatures for a discharge petition to force a vote on a bill requiring the Justice Department to release all unclassified files related to the investigation into Epstein, who died in prison while awaiting trial in 2019. (A discharge petition is a method of bringing a bill to the floor when the House speaker refuses to do so.) The petition had 216 signatures before Walkinshaw won his special election this month, with all House Democrats and four Republicans supporting it. Walkinshaw signed on shortly after being sworn in, and Grijalva’s assent would be the final signature of support needed to reach the 218 it needs to force a vote.
But even if the discharge petition is successful, and the House votes to pass the bill, the measure would need Senate passage and President Donald Trump’s signature to become law, which is unlikely to happen.
The Grijalva name lives on in Congress
Grijalva, 54, will succeed her father, Raúl Grijalva, in representing Arizona’s 7th District, which spans almost the entire length of Arizona’s border with Mexico and includes Tucson, Yuma and Nogales. The 77-year-old died of complications from lung cancer in March, ending a 12-term run in the House in which he established himself as a leading voice of the Democratic Party’s liberal wing.
Adelita Grijalva ran on a platform of building on her father’s legacy and received endorsements from leading liberals, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and the Congressional Progressive Caucus. She cited affordable housing, defending workers’ rights, expanding welfare programs and fighting Trump’s economic agenda as top issues on her campaign website.
“This is a victory not for me, but for our community and the progressive movement my dad started in Southern Arizona more than 50 years ago,” Adelita Grijalva said after winning the Democratic primary in July.
By Alec Dent
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