The House Republican leadership had engineered a way to quietly kill the bipartisan plan from two new moms—Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida and Democratic Rep. Brittany Pettersen of Colorado.
But the two female House members were able to win the support of 218 colleagues, signing on to a so-called “discharge petition” to force their proposal onto the House floor for consideration.
A procedural vote Tuesday tested who had the tally on their side — the speaker or the plan's sponsors. Nine Republicans joined all Democrats to sink the GOP leaders' effort. The vote was 206 to 222.
"If we don't do the right thing now, it'll never be done," said Luna, who gave birth to her son in 2023.
Pettersen with a diaper over her shoulder and four-month-old son, Sam, in her arms, stood on the House floor pleaded with colleagues to turn back the GOP leadership's effort to stop their resolution.
“It is unfathomable that in 2025 we have not modernized Congress,” she said. “We're asking you to continue to stand with us.”
But Johnson believes proxy voting is unconstitutional.
“Look, I’m a father, I’m pro-family. The Republican Party is pro-family,” the Republican speaker said late last month. But he said, "I believe it violates more than two centuries of tradition and institution. And I think that it opens a Pandora’s box, where ultimately, maybe no one is here.”
Republicans say Luna did not go through the regular process, of waiting for their resolution to be brought to the floor through the regular procedure. And they criticized the temporary proxy voting policy that Democrats put in place during the pandemic that they said was abused by member absences.
“You have to come to work, you have to be present,” said Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C. during a committee debate.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., the chair of the Rules Committee, decried what she called the “laptop class” in America that doesn’t have the luxury of working by proxy. “Members of Congress simply need to show up for work,” she said.
Luna’s petition opens the door for the House to vote on a resolution that would allow new parents serving in Congress to designate a proxy — another member of Congress — to vote on their behalf for 12 weeks.
