by Staff Reporter | Oct 11, 2025 | News
By Staff Reporter |
Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva says her district deserves representation, though she was silent on the absence of her father, the late Raúl Grijalva, from office.
The younger Grijalva has yet to be sworn in. She says Republicans are to blame for their refusal to agree to Democrats’ desired Obamacare continuations to lift the ongoing government shutdown.
“Speaker Johnson continues to make excuses but all the while southern Arizona still does not have a voice in Washington,” said Grijlava.
Senator Ruben Gallego also blamed House Speaker Mike Johnson and the rest of his Republican colleagues for Grijalva not being sworn in, claiming Johnson was telling “lies” to the public.
Contrary to Grijalva’s characterization of the situation, Grijalva can’t be sworn in because the statewide certification has yet to take place.
Grijalva’s desire to secure representation for her district is also a newfound one. She had little to say during the final years of her father’s term.
The late Grijalva missed most votes from last year and this year amid a lung cancer battle that would ultimately claim his life in March at 77 years old. The longtime Democrat had held his seat for 20 years when he announced his lung cancer diagnosis in 2023.
The late Grijalva missed nearly all votes (about 97 percent of votes) this and the last session before his passing. The only vote he took this session was for Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries for House Speaker at the start of session. He defended his absence with the claim his vote wouldn’t have any impact in a Republican-controlled Congress.
“They’re inconsequential because the Republicans are in charge and it’s the worst performing Congress in decades, if not a hundred years,” said Grijalva at the time.
Tucson residents were quick to point out the successor Grijalva’s hypocrisy.
“A lung cancer diagnosis in April 2024 led Grijalva to miss most of his votes in the House of Representatives throughout the year and into 2025,” said one user. “[You] didn’t say a damn word.”
Grijalva couldn’t be sworn in sooner than next Tuesday, anyways, because that’s when the statewide canvass is scheduled.
Arizona Secretary of State and fellow Democrat Adrian Fontes issued a press release on that point. The deadline to file an election contest, also, will not occur until October 20.
Next Tuesday is also the earliest date the Senate will reconvene to possibly agree on a continuing resolution to cease the government shutdown.
Debbie Lesko, Maricopa County Supervisor and former congresswoman, reminded the public that she wasn’t sworn in until the House began its session that year, in 2018.
“[This is] what’s happening with Grijalva,” said Lesko. “The Democrats and media are making a big deal over nothing.”
Congress had its longest shutdown on record from December 2018 to January 2019. The shutdown has lasted for over a week now.
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by Matthew Holloway | Oct 9, 2025 | News
By Matthew Holloway |
On Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) clashed with Arizona Democratic Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego in a heated Capitol hallway exchange over the ongoing government shutdown and the delayed swearing-in of Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ-07).
While shutdown disputes are routine, the controversy over Grijalva’s seating is not. The late Rep. Raúl Grijalva’s daughter’s election victory won’t be certified until October 14th, but this seemed lost on Sens. Kelly and Gallego.
Speaker Johnson addressed the non-issue briefly after the Senators joined Grijalva in accusing him of making “excuses.”
Johnson told them, “We’re happy that she got elected. She’s filling her father’s seat, that’s fantastic.” But he clarified, “We have a long tradition here and a process of how we administer the oath to a member. …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.”
Rep.-elect Grijalva has been posting videos to social media accusing Johnson of making “excuses” for not seating her. She has claimed that “Southern Arizona still does not have a voice in Washington” and asked her soon-to-be constituents to pressure the Speaker into opening the House just to swear her in. This comes despite a release from Arizona Secretary of State and fellow Democrat Adrian Fontes on September 23rd, which reiterated that County Canvases were due October 9th and Statewide canvass is scheduled for October 14th.
Grijalva, Kelly, and Gallego have alleged that Johnson is refusing to swear her in to prevent a vote on releasing files related to the Jeffrey Epstein case with Gallego claiming, “You guys just don’t want her to be on the Epstein discharge petition. …This is an excuse so that she doesn’t sign onto that,” according to the Washington Examiner.
Johnson was direct in rebutting him, saying, “That’s totally absurd. You guys are experts at red herrings and distractions,” using the same phrase he did to describe Democrats’ Medicaid-related talking points. “There’s nothing to do with Epstein,” he added.
Turning to reporters, the Speaker dismissed the Democrats’ accusations as “a publicity stunt” and added that he is not “blocking her.”
Referring to the matter again as “distraction” and a “red herring” speaking to News Nation on Wednesday, Johnson was dismissive and said, “This has absolutely nothing to do about Epstein, this is a scheduling matter. As soon as the Democrats vote to reopen the government, we’ll get back to the regular order and session of Congress and that’ll be, I’m sure, among our first orders of business is to administer the oath to the newly elected representative.”
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
by Matthew Holloway | Sep 10, 2025 | News
By Matthew Holloway |
Arizona Reps. Andy Biggs (AZ-05) and Abe Hamadeh (AZ-08) joined President Donald Trump at the White House on Friday. They attended the inaugural gathering of the new “Rose Garden Club” on the recently revamped Rose Garden patio.
At the exclusive event, Biggs and Hamadeh were joined by other key leaders in Congress, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, as well as Vice President Vance and cabinet officials like Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
As reported by USA Today, President Trump introduced the newly constructed patio, formerly a grass lawn, as the “Rose Garden Club.” It will welcome Congressional leaders as well as “people that can bring peace and success to our country.”
Speaking at the posh dinner Trump told the gathered Congressional leaders:
“I’ll tell you what we did to the grass. It was not usable. The reason we would have a press conference, women in particular were sinking deep into the mud. And at some point, it’s time to change. We picked a great stone. I may have a great speaker system, I hope. I hope everybody hears us perfectly. But a lot of people are wondering why you’re here tonight. And I’ll tell you simply why you’re here. Because…you are the ones that have been my friends, and you know what I’m talking about. And you’re smart and even brilliant people. But you would tell people… ‘ I don’t speak to the President much because I always vote with the President.’ Mike Johnson who’s going to go down as one of the great Speakers of our time or any other time. Mike, thank you very much. I said, ‘Mike, I want to do something. I want to reward the people that have confidence in their President, and you, and vote for us. And that includes some of the senators that are here.’”
Initially, the President planned to welcome a group of high-level business figures the previous evening, but the weather intervened. “They didn’t want to have rain on top of their beautiful heads,” Trump said. The group reportedly included Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Sam Altman, founder of OpenAI.
He explained, “You know, you’re the first ones in this great place. We’ll call it ‘The Rose Garden Club. And it’s a club for senators, for congresspeople, and for people in Washington, and frankly, people that can bring peace and success to our country. And you’re invited as congressmen. We have mostly congressmen and senators tonight. Again, you know why you’re first? Because it rained last night. I had the high-tech guys…and they didn’t want to have rain on top of their beautiful heads.
“We had the highest IQ last night in the history of the world, and we took them inside because of two reasons. Number one, I wanted you to be number one. And you were. They could’ve endured a little rain, but I wanted you to be number one. And I would match IQ tonight here with what we had last night, meaning IQ of common sense and survival. I think you have a higher IQ in certain ways, let me tell you. But we had a great group last night, and they’re investing tens of billions, they’re investing trillions of dollars. Some of the companies are investing literally trillions of dollars in this great country of ours.”
In early August, Trump told reporters the Rose Garden was “always wet and damp.” He added, “When we had a press conference, you’d sink into the mud. If it rained it would take three, four, five days to dry out and we couldn’t use it really for the intended purpose.”
In a post to X, Congressman Hamadeh thanked President Trump writing, “Honored to be at the first Rose Garden Club dinner — beautiful event, thank you Mr. President. Keep Making America Great Again!”
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
by Kerri Toloczko | Sep 10, 2024 | Opinion
By Kerri Toloczko |
Tonight, the presidential candidates will have their first debate. But there is one critical election issue the American people are not debating at all. They agree that non-U.S. citizens should not vote in U.S. elections.
This is a convenient opinion for Americans to hold as it is also the law.
The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) and other federal codes and state constitutions require that only citizens vote in our elections. This is unequivocal. It is in writing. It is common sense.
The problem with laws is that people break them — including noncitizens who commit one federal crime by registering to vote and then another by actually voting. But because federal statutes are silent on requiring documentary proof of citizenship for either step, states have not demanded citizenship proof for voter registration on federal forms.
These registration forms are provided to people applying for a driver’s license or state ID with no consideration to whether that person is a citizen or not. And the entire citizen “confirmation” process is an innocuous checkbox on the federal form that many registrants fill in just because it’s there.
For noncitizen newcomers not proficient in English, all they know is that a government official handed them a form to fill out with a box to check — or that a liberal activist group told them to check it.
Election at Risk
Earlier this year, Tea Party Patriots commissioned a poll of citizens who vote regularly and found that 86 percent believe “proof of U.S. citizenship should be required to register to vote in American elections” and “only U.S. citizens should vote in elections in America.”
Who is the clueless other 13 percent? Leftwing political elites, their friends in the deceitful media, and the current occupants of the White House and vice president’s mansion, that’s who.
How do we know this? By following the SAVE Act and seeing who opposes it.
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives in July, hung out for a while in the do-nothing Senate, and may now bounce back to the House as an add-on to a must-pass bill.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and congressional Republicans acknowledge that noncitizens are registering to vote in numbers not seen before — and those illegal votes, cast in specific cities or counties, could sway the entire federal election.
The SAVE Act closes federal loopholes that allow noncitizens to register to vote by requiring election officials to ask about citizenship during registration, and potential registrants to provide documentary proof of citizenship. It gives states unfettered access to existing federal databases to check citizenship status against voter rolls.
It is a “must pass” all by itself — to protect our constitutional republic where the people’s will should matter most.
SAVE the Vote
Noncitizens aren’t the only ones paying consequences for unlawful registration and voting. Punishments include jail, fines, and immediate removal procedures. Naturalization is also permanently denied for applicants who show up on voter rolls, and they are subject to deportation.
Then there’s the American voter. Every time a noncitizen illegally votes — intentionally or unknowingly — a citizen’s ballot is removed from the count. Americans have clearly signaled they know this is happening, they don’t like it, and they do not want to pay that price.
But there is nothing in law allowing action against election officials who fail to uphold laws on citizenship requirements, or DMV bureaucrats who knowingly hand voter registration forms to noncitizens. The SAVE Act will empower citizens to bring civil suits in these cases and includes penalties for those enabling or encouraging noncitizens to register and to vote.
Progressive politocrats and their media friends offer two deceptive talking points about noncitizen voting.
One is “It’s against the law anyway.” It is also against the law to steal a car, commit murder, and jaywalk. But perhaps worse is their casual quip, dripping with moral relativism, that illegal immigrants voting “is not widespread.”
Both these ridiculous notions can be easily repudiated.
Proof
The federal government recently indicted a group of noncitizens from 15 countries on federal voting charges. Virginia recently purged 6,500 noncitizens from its voter rolls. Texas removed 6,300 people — 30% of whom had voting records. A 2014 academic journal reported that 6.4% of noncitizens voted in 2008.
There are about 24 million noncitizens currently in the U.S. If they voted only at the same rate of 6.4% this year as they did in 2008, they would account for 1.5 million votes.
Within 39 months of the Biden/Harris administration (including our “border czar”) coming into office, the foreign-born population of our nation increased by 6.6 million; at least 4.6 million of those are illegal immigrants.
Flyers have been found being widely distributed on the Mexican side of the U.S.\Mexican border encouraging illegal immigrants to vote for Biden in 2024. Biden issued Executive Order 14019 in March 2021, demanding anyone approaching the federal government for services (with no citizenship caveats) be provided a voter registration form. The Biden/Harris administration officially opposes the SAVE Act. Is all of that coincidence? And what could possibly go wrong?
If we learned nothing else from the presidential election of 2020, we know Americans of both political parties are profoundly disturbed by foreign interference of any kind in our elections.
Noncitizen voting is foreign influence.
We live in a representative republic. It’s beyond time our representatives listen to what we are telling them about the sanctity of our elections. Let’s get on with ensuring that only Americans vote in American elections.
Originally published by The Stream.
Kerri Toloczko is the executive director of Election Integrity Network and senior advisor to the Only Citizens Vote Coalition. Both of these nonprofit organizations are dedicated to protecting all ballots and ensuring that elections follow the law. They are also leading organizers of the 2024 Only Citizens Vote Week, which runs from September 15 to September 21.
by Matthew Holloway | Jul 10, 2024 | News
By Matthew Holloway |
Arizona’s Congressman for the 2nd District, Eli Crane, definitively and vociferously professed his support this week for the SAVE Act, stating in a post to X that “American citizens are the only ones who should be voting in American elections.”
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, would require that voters provide “documentary proof of United States citizenship” to vote in federal elections, and that the states “shall remove an individual who is not a citizen of the United States from the official list of eligible voters.”
Essentially the law would federalize and answer in broad scope the controversy across the states which has seen illegal immigrants suspected of voting illegally in federal elections, by providing a common, overarching standard each state must meet.
Despite it’s straightforward and obviously constitutional construction, the SAVE Act has been met with unremitted hostility and vehement opposition from both the Biden White House and Congressional Democrats. House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA) sent voting instructions to her House Caucus telling them they are “urged to VOTE NO” on the bill, according to a report by Axios. Clark’s office claimed that the bill would “prevent Americans from registering to vote with their drivers’ license alone,” would make a passport the “only acceptable standalone form of identification,” and suggested it would create what they called an “extreme burden for countless Americans” and “further intimidate election officials and overburden states’ abilities to enroll new voters.”
But the Democrats have drawn open scorn and rebuke from a broad host of prominent Americans who see the bill as a much needed step to rebuild faith in the American electoral system.
Responding to a report by Axios that “House Democratic leadership is bringing out the big guns against a Republican bill set to be voted on next week that would require proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in federal elections,” Tim Pool of Timcast News commented in a post to X, “What? Why? Who disagrees with this?”
Mr. Pool, a prominent, classically liberal voice in American politics drew responses from Elon Musk who replied directly, “Because they want to cheat.”
The Redheaded Libertarian observed, “Every voting amendment is clear. Blocking the SAFE Act is shirking their oath to defend the Constitution,” and provided basis for this in the Fifteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-Fourth, and Twenty-Sixth Amendments citing their use of the words “citizens of the United States.”
Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) also noted in a video posted to X, “Biden let in millions of illegal aliens. Now he’s opposing the SAVE Act, which would prevent noncitizens from voting in federal elections. Tell your members of Congress: pass the SAVE Act!”
The Libs of TikTok commentary account of Chaya Raichik responded matter-of-factly, “Only traitors are against the SAVE Act!”
At the end of June, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) released a report making the case for the SAVE Act.
The report points out: “There is ample evidence that noncitizens are voting in U.S. elections:
- A 2014 study that analyzed the 2008 and 2010 elections concluded that not only had noncitizens illegally voted in U.S. elections but also that the votes of noncitizens likely determined the outcome in certain races.
- In states like Massachusetts, Ohio, and Virginia, noncitizens have recently been removed from the voting rolls – and many of those noncitizens had voted.
- The Arizona Secretary of State website is currently falsely promoting the idea that individuals who fail to present proof of citizenship when registering will ‘be eligible to vote in federal elections.'”
The report calling for the passage of the SAVE Act concludes, “The evidence is overwhelming. Many noncitizens are able to obtain a Social Security Number. Over the past three years, the Biden Administration’s policies have encouraged illegal immigration and aided a large number of noncitizens in obtaining an SSN. Loopholes in federal law could allow noncitizens to register to vote. An SSN alone is ineffective to prevent noncitizen registration and noncitizen voting. Noncitizens have been illegally voting in federal elections and have, according to one study, even affected the outcome of elections. Noncitizen voting is a threat to election integrity. Congress must pass the SAVE Act to close the loopholes that have allowed noncitizen voting, to enhance election security, to reduce the risk of foreign election interference, and to restore Americans’ confidence in U.S. elections.”
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
