The Speaker and the People: When Ceremony Overrides Sovereignty

This paper examines the constitutional implications of Speaker Mike Johnson’s refusal to administer the oath of office to Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva, arguing that the episode reveals a structural fragility in the American constitutional system—the reliance of popular sovereignty on personal virtue rather than enforceable law. Through analysis of Article I, Section 2, Article VI, and leading Supreme Court precedents including Powell v. McCormack and Marbury v. Madison, the study demonstrates that electoral legitimacy arises from certification by the people’s will, not from ceremonial recognition by the Speaker. The paper situates this incident within a broader inquiry into “institutional self-betrayal,” showing how procedural formalism can invert constitutional purpose by transforming moral trust into discretionary authority. By tracing the historical and philosophical roots of this inversion—from Montesquieu and Locke to Madison—the analysis contends that modern republican governance has mistaken obedience for virtue and ritual for legitimacy. The work concludes that constitutional erosion in the United States no longer proceeds through rebellion but through ceremony—when the law, in its devotion to form, begins to undermine the sovereignty it was meant to serve.