Michael Gold

How so?

So seven weeks ago, an Arizona Democrat named Adelita Grijalva won a special election to fill a seat that was left vacant after her father died in office.

And during her campaign, Grijalva said that as soon as she got to Capitol Hill, one of the first things she would do is sign on to this discharge petition.

That's right.

When Grijalva won, it looked like this petition might finally succeed.

The problem was that when Grijalva won her election, the House was in recess, and Speaker Mike Johnson refused to seat her until the recess was over, which would not happen until there was a deal to end the shutdown.

So Speaker Johnson says that he'll swear Adelita Grijalva in at 4 p.m.

on Wednesday.

And that sets a deadline.

At this point, the discharge petition has 217 signatures.

Grijalva would be the 218th.

Of the people on the petition, four of them are Republicans.

That's Thomas Massey and three Republican women, Nancy Mace, Lauren Boebert, and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Essentially, this 4 p.m.

deadline kicks off a last-minute pressure campaign by the White House, who had been lobbying these Republicans for months to pull their names from the petition.

But this doesn't work.

They all say they're going to stay on the petition.

And at 4 p.m.

today, Adelita Grijalva gets sworn in.

And the first thing she does after she finishes is signs this petition.