Public cynicism about American politics can’t get much worse than it already is. And there is a lot to be cynical about.
A December 2024 poll reported that only a quarter of Americans "believe the country’s best days are ahead." Another quarter says the country "needs a total upheaval to get back on track.”
Voters don’t believe that political leaders care about people like them. Because politicians want to cling to power, they will, many Americans think, lie and cheat.
The embarrassing spectacle of House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) refusal to do his duty and swear in a newly elected Democratic member of Congress is more fuel for the public’s cynicism and disillusionment with American politics. And it does not serve the House of Representatives well.
Congresswoman-elect Adelita Grijalva won a special election on Sept. 24, 2025, in Arizona's 7th congressional district. When sworn in, she will be the 215th Democrat in the House, further narrowing the already slim Republican majority.
Until that time, she cannot add her name to a discharge petition that would lead to a vote requiring the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. That petition needs only one more signature.
On Oct. 8, Arizona’s two senators, Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), both of whom are Democrats, confronted Johnson, demanding to know why has was delaying Grijalva‘s swearing-in. The Speaker only made matters worse by offering a lame excuse.
He accused the senators of being “experts in red herrings and distraction,” and claimed that his refusal to do this routine part of House business had nothing to do with Epstein. Instead, he explained, it was because the House was not formally in session.
One week later, Johnson doubled down on his refusal to swear in Grijalva, saying, "Bless her heart. She's a Representative-elect. She doesn't know how things work around here."
His response was patronizing and false. Grijalva and everyone else know that in April, when the House was also out of session, Johnson did not hesitate to swear in two new Republican representatives. They were elected on April 1 and sworn in just one day later.
In September, another Republican representative won a special election and was sworn in less than 24 hours later.
With respect to Grijalva, Johnson went on to say, “We’re going to do that as soon as we get back to work, but we need the lights turned back on, so we encourage both of you to go open the government.” Then stumbling a bit, he said, “It’s a ceremonial duty. ... We will do it as soon as she wants.”
Well, she has wanted to be sworn in since the day she was elected. As Grijalva noted to an interviewer, “We had a freshman class sworn in 2019 during a shutdown. ... Speaker Johnson’s precedent is what he is backpedaling on.” No one else has had to wait as long to be sworn in since Johnson became Speaker.
House rules say that the Speaker administers the oath of office to all members elect. The usual practice is that representatives take their oath during the first day of a new Congress. There are no rules about when members chosen in special elections take the oath.
Johnson knows his own precedents as well as anyone else. He just doesn’t want to follow them. He is apparently untroubled that he is depriving people in Grijalva’s district of representation. That is not something any person committed to democratic norms should ever do.
Johnson’s willingness to violate those norms is reminiscent of what former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did in 2016 when he refused to allow consideration of President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. That move broke longstanding Senate customs.
McConnell argued that the “vacancy should not be filled by this lame duck president" and that the American people were “perfectly capable of having their say on this issue, so let's give them a voice. Let's let the American people decide.”
Four years later, just six weeks before the 2020 election, McConnell quickly announced that the Senate would consider President Trump’s nominee to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
What happened to the principle of letting the people decide? McConnell ignored it in order to make sure that a president of his party would get the seat. Partisan? Yes. Hypocritical? Yes.
Sound familiar? Speaker Johnson is simply following the playbook.
In so doing, he is disrespecting the House of Representatives the same way McConnell disrespected the Senate in order to favor the Republican Party. That kind of leadership deepens public cynicism and makes any leader who plays by the “rules” look foolish. The American people deserve better.
Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College.
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