There's a showdown underway right now in the House of Representatives, with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) pitted against Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) over whether or not to extend proxy voting privileges to new parents for a period of 12 weeks. Johnson maintains that members have a constitutional duty to be present on the House floor for votes, while Luna argues that an exception should be made for members who have just welcomed a child.
Both sides are firmly dug in at the moment, but Luna seems to have the advantage as her efforts have gotten the support of many Democrats. And that's not necessarily a bad thing in this case, but, let's face it, things can get kind of thorny when a certain group wants a special perk.
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Just to back up for a second, proxy voting occurs when one member signs over their voting privileges to another if they're unable to be present on the House floor for a vote. For many years, this privilege only extended to committee votes; if a member wasn't able to be in DC for the floor vote, then they simply didn't vote.
COVID changed everything.
Back in May of 2020, when Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) still ruled the House and "experts" were still in "two weeks to stop the spread" mode, the rules were changed to allow proxy voting on all committee and floor votes. Here's how Roll Call reported on that unprecedented move:
The House voted 217-189 Friday to approve a package of historic changes to the chamber rules to allow Congress to continue much of its business through the pandemic that has made gathering together and travel threats to public health.
“Convening Congress must not turn into a super-spreader event,” said House Rules Chairman Jim McGovern.
Under the new rules, lawmakers will be able to join millions of Americans in working from home if they are unable to travel to Capitol Hill to participate in House business.
(As an aside, if you're like me, you really, really never want to hear the words "super-spreader event" again. Ever.)
This change was only supposed to last 45 days, but, well, you know what happened there. The draconian COVID restrictions lingered, and members of Congress got to pick and choose when they'd be in DC or when, like many of them, they'd conduct business from their temporary homes in the free state of Florida.
Those were fun times.
Anyway, Nancy Pelosi is now on the sidelines and Mike Johnson is the one calling the shots. And, well, Speaker Johnson really doesn't like proxy voting, arguing that it violates the Constitution and over 230 years of precedent requiring in-person voting. The COVID rules have long since expired, once again requiring members to be present for votes.
Now, along comes Anna Paulina Luna with a plan to bend the rules a bit for members who become parents:
“This is about changing the institution for the better,” Luna told NOTUS Thursday. “We had some great members of Congress that we lost because of the fact that they were like, ‘this was just too hard with her family.’ You have another member who just announced that she’s pregnant, which we’re so happy for her, but I hope she never has to deal with not being able to vote and represent her constituents because she’s out.”
Steve Scalise offered the opposing view, which seems to be supported by Republican leadership:
“I’ve never proxy voted, and I don’t think it’s constitutional, but I also think this is one of those unique jobs where you have to be looking a colleague in the eye and view him on the floor to get to be able to do this job effectively,” Majority Leader Steve Scalise said Thursday. “You cannot do this job remotely.”
Is there a compromise somewhere in there? An option used in the past by committees was to postpone votes until all members could be present, but that would be a logistical nightmare as Republicans scramble to get President Trump's legislative agenda passed before the midterms next year.
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There's also the issue of the GOP's very slim majority to contend with -- it currently sits at 218 to 213, with two special elections taking place next week. One of those could very easily go the Democrats' way, so not having GOP members showing up to vote simply isn't an option.
Here's my solution: Republican leadership should get on board, but curtail the amount of time extended to new parents. As in most things, voters won't take kindly to Congress getting special treatment that regular folk often don't get, so three months is a non-starter.
Having once been a new mom whose transition into motherhood was anything but smooth, I sympathize with any mom who feels rushed into returning to work while they're dealing with physical and emotional upheaval. It ain't for the weakhearted, but there's room for compromise here.
