Frustrated Arizonans have waited more than a month for their new congresswoman to be seated | CNN Politics
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House Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to swear in the newly-elected Adelita Grijalva while the government is shut down, leaving the residents of her sprawling southern Arizona district without a vote in Congress — or help back home.

More than a month later, the local congressional office in Tucson is shuttered and the phones ring unanswered. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to swear in Grijalva, a Democrat, while the government is shut down, leaving the residents of her sprawling southern Arizona district without a vote in Congress — or help back home.

“Here I am paying taxes to the federal government,” Wilson said from her Tucson office this week, “and not only is it closed but I don’t have a representative either.”

Grijalva spent much of the week in Washington unable to access government email and federal systems. While most congressional offices are buzzing with activity, her suite on the Hill remains mostly quiet and many desks sit empty. She doesn’t have the resources or authority, she said, to staff a district office or assist constituents who try to contact her. Without security privileges, she’s barred from bringing so much as a hammer into the Capitol for hanging pictures. It would be considered a weapon, she said.

  • aarch0x40@lemmy.worldEnglish
    82·
    3 days ago

    Guess Arizonans won’t have to pay their Federal Income Tax for 2025 then. No taxation without representation, right?

    • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      16·
      2 days ago

      I mean… what are basically any states paying Federal taxes for, at this point?

      Nearly everything the Federal government throws that money at… well they’ve pretty much stopped.

      Oh but we need it to fund disaster response like- oh, right, that’s all been repurposed into building concentration camps for ICE.

      Oh but we need it to maintain critical infrastru- oh, right, that’s all been falling apart for decades, unless its for a data center/bitcoin farm.

      Oh but what about funding for the poor and homeless and Section 8 and - … oh would you look at that, basically all cut down to the bone as well.

      Meanwhile, the top of the income brackets for social security income taxes is ~180k. Which basically denotes the threshold between probably living paycheck to paycheck, and almost certainly not.

      The fundamental system of funding would work fine if you just added another 2 or 3 or 4 brackets above that, but no, this is apparently an unthinkable concept, and we are all told social security just will go bankrupt and there is nothing that can be done.

      Fuck that. Stop paying for it federally, do it at the state level.

      Trump is currently busy invading Venezuela, and ICE vs just a couple state’s nation guard units … that doesn’t end well for ICE, they are horrendously poorly trained and there are not that many of them, maybe 30k max for actual ‘field agents’.