It’s a bipartisan effort. Independent voters are tired of division and Congress’s inability to achieve results. We rarely see a bipartisan effort in Congress today because, in many respects, we are not allowed to witness it.
The Big Picture
The House of Representatives abruptly canceled votes for the week after Republican leadership lost a procedural vote on the rule allowing consideration of four pieces of legislation. The reason that a handful of Republicans joined Democrats to defeat the rule was unrelated to the legislation on the House's agenda. Specifically, it involved a bipartisan effort to enable new parents serving in the House to vote by proxy for up to 12 weeks.
We’re getting into some legislative inside baseball that people only really hear about when something goes off the rails, like what happened on April 1. Most legislating in the House happens outside of what we call “regular order.” Legislation that isn’t controversial passes under the suspension of the rules. Legislation considered under the suspension of the rules require two-thirds of members present for passage or by voice vote. Partisan legislation comes to the floor under a rule that sets the parameters for consideration, including the time for debate, what, if any, amendments can be considered, and a motion to recommit. The House Rules Committee marks up the rule in the form of a House Resolution (H.Res.).
Because these rules are procedural, the expectation is that members of the majority vote to pass the rule while members of the minority vote against it. Occasionally, a rule is defeated on the floor. This can happen for different reasons, either because of problems with legislation for which the rule applies or because leadership used the rule essentially to quash dissent. The latter is what happened yesterday.
In this instance, you have an effort led by a Republican and a Democrat that House Republican leadership didn’t like and would do everything they could to block.
Republicans and Democrats Work Across the Aisle in Hyper-Partisan Times
Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) and Brittany Petterson (D-CO) led an effort to change the House rules to allow new parents to vote by proxy for up to 12 weeks. We’ll get to a little more on proxy voting in a moment. Under the Rules of the House of Representatives (Rule XV, Clause 2), a member may start a discharge petition to force a vote on a piece of legislation after a certain number of legislative days have passed. The signatures of 218 members are required for the discharge petition. There are other specifics of the process that aren’t necessary to get into for our purposes today. The primary purpose of discharge petitions is to sidestep House leadership when your bill or resolution is being ignored.
The effort is notable. Luna, who is in her second term, is well known as a conservative who frequently toes whatever party line comes from Donald Trump. Until very recently, she was a member of the House Freedom Caucus, a group of 30 to 40 Republicans who largely carry Trump’s water on Capitol Hill. She is also a mother. She’s one of a small number of women who have given birth while in office. She had a son in August 2023 and has made changing the rules to allow new parents to vote by proxy a priority for more than a year.
Petterson is a Democrat who is also in her second term. She’s more of a centrist, being a member of the Problem Solvers Caucus and New Democrat Coalition. Like Luna, Petterson gave birth while in office. She has given speeches on the floor while holding her son in her arms.
Passionate about the issue, Luna started a discharge petition for H.Res. 164. This rule provides for the consideration of H.Res. 23, which would change the Rules of the House of Representatives to provide the option of proxy voting for new parents. Luna got the required 218 signatures. This is only the second successful discharge petition since 2015.
House Republican leadership is, however, opposed to proxy voting and tried to quash Luna’s discharge petition effort in the rule, H.Res. 282, providing for the consideration of the major bills on the floor this week. The relevant text is below.
If H.Res. 282 were adopted, Luna’s effort to discharge H.Res. 164 and force a vote on H.Res. 23 would’ve been stopped, and the push for proxy voting for new parents would’ve ended for presumably the remainder of the 119th Congress. Nine Republicans, however, crossed party lines to take down H.Res. 282 on the floor. House Republican leadership subsequently canceled votes for the rest of the week and sent members home.
This also recently happened in the context of the National Emergencies Act. The House passed a rule to stop any attempt to terminate the national emergency that Trump is using to justify his tariffs against Canada. The Senate is soon expected to send such a joint resolution to the House.
Zooming In
Voting by proxy means that although the member isn’t physically present, they can formally request that another member vote for them in a manner consistent with their instructions. Proxy voting was employed during the COVID-19 pandemic when Democrats had the majority. House Republicans, by and large, opposed proxy voting.
In 2020, then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) filed a lawsuit against Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) over proxy voting. The case was ultimately decided at the circuit court level. McCarthy argued that proxy voting is unconstitutional, in part, because Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution requires a majority of members for a quorum to conduct business. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed the case, allowing proxy voting to remain in place.
McCarthy appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. A three-judge panel affirmed the lower court ruling, allowing the rule providing for proxy voting to remain in effect. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case, keeping proxy voting in the House alive until Republicans ended it in January 2023 when they took the majority.
Luna and Petterson's effort is much more limited than the proxy voting allowed in the House during COVID-19 because it applies to a small group of people–new parents. The potential for abuse is limited. However, concerns about abuse of proxy voting have come up, as well as the quorum requirement stipulated by the Constitution. The latter is a legitimate concern under a broader proxy voting proposal. It’s a “slippery slope” argument, and it’s not an invalid one.
Independent Lens
Regardless, the issue of proxy voting for new parents should be openly debated on the House floor. It’s a bipartisan effort. Independent voters are tired of division and Congress’s inability to achieve results. A bipartisan effort is something we rarely see in Congress today because, in many respects, we are not allowed to witness it. This isn’t the only proposal that could succeed if leadership brought it to the floor. As minor as this may appear to some, it is personal for Luna, Petterson, and many others.
Let both sides of the proxy voting for new parents express their views on the floor. Allow them to debate the merits. There are strong arguments on both sides. We need to hear them, rather than have them suppressed until the end of 2026.
