Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva was sworn in by Mike Johnson, the US House speaker, on Wednesday, ending a contentious seven-week standoff that prevented the incoming representative from taking her seat and clearing the path for a vote to release the Jeffrey Epstein files.
House Democrats burst into applause after Grijalva took the oath of office, in a floor ceremony that took place shortly before the chamber was poised to take up legislation that would end the longest federal government shutdown in US history. The House was already out of session when Grijalva won a late September special election to succeed her father, the longtime representative Raúl Grijalva, who died in March. Johnson, who kept the House in recess as a tactic to pressure Senate Democrats to compromise with Republicans on legislation to fund the government, had said he would not swear in Grijalva until after the chamber returned.
