1 month ago
36
ARTICLE AD BOX
House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday that proxy voting is unconstitutional, despite a bipartisan push in the House to allow lawmakers who are new parents to vote while absent from Congress.
Mr. Johnson, Louisiana Republican, argued that proxy voting, which allows a member to designate another lawmaker to vote in their stead, runs afoul of the institution’s principles. He blamed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s implementation of proxy voting during the COVID-19 pandemic as violating “the very document that organized us.”
He made that point during the House GOP’s weekly, closed-door meeting on Tuesday as Rep. Anna Paulina, Florida Republican, is pushing to change the House’s rules to allow for new parents to vote by proxy.
“I believe it’s unconstitutional. I believe it violates more than two centuries of tradition in the institution, and I think that it opens a Pandora’s Box where, ultimately, maybe no one is here,” Mr. Johnson said. “And we’re all voting remotely by AI or something.”
But the speaker’s opposition to proxy voting comes with the reality that House Republicans command a paper-thin majority, where pivotal legislation can be decided by one or two votes depending on attendance.
Rep. Marlin Stutzman, Indiana Republican, agreed with the speaker’s stance and said he isn’t concerned that banning proxy voting could negatively impact tight votes.
“I just think if you play with proxy voting, you’re just asking for trouble,” he told The Washington Times.
Ms. Luna and Rep. Brittany Pettersen, Colorado Democrat, joined forces on a resolution that would allow a new parent in Congress, whether they gave birth or their spouse gave birth, to designate a fellow lawmaker to vote on their behalf for up to 12 weeks while away caring for the newborn.
Ms. Luna moved to circumvent the speaker with a discharge petition, which would force a vote on a bill without going through committee if it can reach 218 signatures. She filed the petition earlier this month and hit the threshold with a dozen Republicans joining Democrats in an effort to bring the resolution to the House floor. No vote has been set.
The lawmaker posted on social media instances when Mr. Johnson had voted by proxy during the 117th Congress, with the latest proxy vote coming in December 2022. She rebuked the speaker’s concern that reinstating voting by proxy would lead to other problems, arguing that her resolution isolates the issue and that “the dam has been broken on that already.”
“I think he’s wrong, he thinks I’m wrong,” Ms. Luna said. “I’m right, he’s wrong.”
Mr. Johnson said that he believed Ms. Luna had “pure motives.” He said although he is a father and pro-family Republican, and that he wanted to make it “as easy as possible” for young parents in Congress to be able to participate, he wouldn’t budge from his view that proxy voting violates the Constitution.
“If you create a proxy vote opportunity for young parents, mothers and the fathers in those situations, then where is the limiting principle?” he said.
Rep. Tim Burchett, Tennessee Republican, was one of the dozen GOP members who signed on to Ms. Luna’s petition. He told The Times that he’s not a fan of proxy voting, nor has he done it during his time in Congress, but that he still supported the push to bring it back “unless somebody can show me constitutionally where that doesn’t work out.”
“If we’re going to make one exception, it just seems like a pregnant woman would be that exception,” Mr. Burchett said.
English (US) ·