WASHINGTON — A band of Republican lawmakers on Tuesday brought the House floor to a halt over a bitter dispute with Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and conservatives in their own party over a plan to allow remote voting for lawmakers who become new parents.
A procedural rule vote to advance the House GOP’s package of bills for the week failed 206-222, with nine Republicans bucking GOP leadership and voting with all 213 Democrats. The failed vote means, for now, those pieces of legislation cannot move forward for a final vote.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., who gave birth to her first child in 2023, is planning to force a floor vote this week on a resolution that would allow new mothers and fathers in the House to be able to vote remotely, through a proxy, for up to 12 weeks.
But the effort has been fiercely opposed by Johnson and his leadership team, as well as members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, of which Luna had been a member until recently. Opponents called the proposal “unconstitutional” and warned it would lead to a slippery slope where others would request to vote by proxy.
To stop Luna, Johnson’s team inserted language in a rules package to kill the proxy-voting push by essentially blocking any discharge petition, a tool that allows any member to circumvent leadership of the majority party and bring legislation directly to the floor for a vote after collecting 218 signatures.
Luna had collected the 218 signatures, including from 11 Republicans, needed to force a vote on the proxy legislation. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, D-Colo., who gave birth in Janu and brought her baby to the floor on Tuesday, co-authored the bill.
