House Republicans are preparing for a fiery legislative battle Tuesday afternoon between rank-and-file members and leadership over whether new parents should be given special permission to vote remotely.
The House Rules Committee earlier Tuesday advanced bills that included language to effectively kill an effort by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) to force a floor vote on whether House members could vote by proxy after the birth of a baby. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) opposes Luna’s effort, saying it is unconstitutional and would open a “Pandora’s box” for other proxy voting exceptions.
Along party lines, the committee advanced the No Rogue Rulings Act, the SAVE Act, and language that would table Luna’s so-called discharge petition and prevent similar resolutions from being brought up in the future. It is the first time in recent history a party has taken actions such as this in the Rules Committee to block discharge petitions, a method Republicans call a “tool of the minority.”
This puts the slate of bills and the effort to kill Luna’s petition on the floor for a 1:30 p.m. rule vote. It will be a test of how many other Republicans will stand with Luna and vote against the rule that would unlock other pieces of legislation they support on judicial reform and voting security. Johnson can only afford to lose two votes to pass measures in his slim House majority.
Under Luna’s proposal, members would be able to designate another member as a proxy beginning on the date of the birth and terminating 12 weeks after. Only 13 women have given birth while serving as members of Congress in history, with Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-CO) being the most recent. Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) will become the 14th member, as she is due to give birth to a baby girl in August.
Many Republicans have heavily criticized proxy voting, particularly when the practice was used during the COVID-19 pandemic. Leadership and several members of the Freedom Caucus are once again in a rare moment of partnership, with the hard-liners threatening to hold up floor procedures if leaders allowed the new parent proxy voting bill to come to the floor.
Due to hard-liners’ push to kill her bill, Luna announced Monday that she was leaving the Freedom Caucus. In a letter to the caucus, she said she could not remain in a group that “disparages” her and brokers “backroom deals.” In a letter to the GOP conference, she accused her former caucus colleagues of blackmailing Johnson into nixing her petition.
Johnson and Luna have had numerous “cordial” conversations regarding the petition over the week, both have told reporters. A GOP lawmaker told the Washington Examiner that Johnson made a strong case against Luna’s discharge petition in conference but was “complimentary of Anna.”
“We’re not going to let it come to the floor,” Johnson told reporters Tuesday.
Luna said Monday that if language to prevent her resolution from coming to the floor passed in the Rules Committee, she would vote against the rule. She said Tuesday that she asked leadership to extend proxy voting to just new mothers, the original intention of the bill, “and they still said no.”
“So we are here now,” Luna said. “The argument here is no longer making sense. They say it is unconstitutional, yet they voted by proxy.”
Both Reps. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) and Tim Burchett (R-TN) told reporters Tuesday that they were leaning toward voting no. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) hesitated Monday to say which way he would vote but noted that he has never voted against a rule during his time in Congress.
Voting against the procedural hurdle, which dictates floor speeches and amendment processes, has often been weaponized by the Freedom Caucus and other hard-line conservatives to push back against leadership-backed legislation that members disagreed with. This weaponization has been used in congresses past but became more frequent under former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Johnson during the 118th Congress.
Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA), who signed the discharge petition, told reporters he would vote for the rule to effectively kill the petition.
“I support her efforts to make sure that new mothers are treated well and have every opportunity to vote, just like everybody else,” McCormick said. “Now I’m a military guy. I remember going when kids are born while we’re gone for six months, and so I feel badly for people who are new mothers, but I think we can accommodate them here,” physically, in Congress.
Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX) will bring his young son to the House floor to protest Johnson’s push to kill the proxy voting petition, per CNN. Hunt flew home to Texas 16 times during the 15-round marathon for McCarthy’s speakership while his son, Willie, was ill in the NICU. The congressman has not said how he will vote on the discharge petition.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) said the rule language change is just “adding extra divisiveness on this divisive topic.” He said Johnson’s arguments against the new parent proxy voting “aren’t very good.”
“I think the apocalyptic predictions that the other side makes, the other side being those who don’t want proxy voting, about this issue are just not based in reality,” Crenshaw said. “It’s a slippery slope, fallacy argument.”
NEW PARENT PROXY VOTING SETS UP GOP SCHISM AS LUNA THREATENS LEADERSHIP ‘HARDBALL’
When asked about his position on the rule vote, Crenshaw said, “This leadership team hasn’t done anything to earn my loyalty.”
With Johnson’s two-vote majority, if Luna votes no, and Crenshaw and Burchett both decided to vote against the rule, the procedural hurdle would fail, sending the Rules Committee back to the drawing board.
Lauren Green contributed to this report.
