‘Pro-Family’ House Republicans Want To Scuttle Resolution Allowing New Parents to Proxy Vote

Republican leaders are intensifying their efforts to kill a bipartisan effort that would allow congress members who are new parents, and pregnant people who are unable to travel safely or have a serious medical condition, to vote by proxy for up to 12 weeks.

Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican from Florida who co-sponsored the resolution, said this week that her colleagues have attempted to bribe and threaten her to remove support for the effort.

These attempts, Luna said, haven’t deterred her.

“I’m not going to be bought. I will tell you that I’ve now been reached out to multiple times, offering me positions on different committees, and I don’t want it because this is bigger than me,” Luna, who became the 12th lawmaker to give birth while serving in the House in 2023, told reporters on Thursday. “It’s about actually changing the institution for the better.”

X content

This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

Representatives Luna, Colorado Democrat Brittany Pettersen, California Democrat Sara Jacobs, and Republican Mike Lawler of New York teamed up on the resolution, garnering the 218 signatures from House members necessary for a discharge petition. This petition permits them to schedule a vote on the resolution, even without the support of the chamber’s leadership. Meaning, they have enough bipartisan support to force a vote in Congress.

But some Republicans, including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, are waging a war on the resolution—reportedly threatening Luna and her supporters with electoral consequences if they don’t shutter the effort. And, according to reporting from Politico, even supporting the bill has led some representatives to receive threats that they won’t be helped with fundraising efforts or that their bills won’t make it to the congressional floor.

Johnson, who prides himself on being a leader for family values, has vocally opposed the resolution.

“I’m a father. I’m pro-family. The Republican Party is pro-family. We want to make it as easy as possible for young parents to be able to participate in the process,” Johnson told NPR about the push to change the rules for new parents. “But proxy voting, in my view, is unconstitutional.” The speaker said the resolution could be a “slippery slope” to other exemptions.

Luna told reporters that she is open to negotiating with Republican leadership—under certain circumstances. “If you’re going to negotiate, you’re not going to be honest with the negotiations, there is no negotiation,” she said, later adding, “I am not going to destroy democracy by allowing female members to vote when recovering from birth.”

This coordinated attack to deny new parents, and particularly new moms, in Congress the ability to vote remotely for a dozen weeks flies in the face of top Republicans’ voiced commitment to supporting the American family and the rights of mothers. When reached by NPR, Johnson’s office declined to comment on allegations by Luna and others.

Some House Republicans, per reporting from Politico, have been subject to a pressure campaign to rescind their support for the resolution.

Representative Tim Burchett, a Republican from Tennessee, said “somebody” offered to bring a bill he sponsored to the floor in exchange for switching his vote. He didn’t accept, and instead doubled down on his support for the bipartisan groups’ efforts.

“Voting against pregnant women, are y’all crazy?” Burchett said he responded to the bribe. (Burchett has, several times, voted for anti-abortion legislation and has an A+ rating from Susan B. Anthony Pro-life America.)

This push for proxy voting isn’t without precedent.

In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic first spread across the country, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi allowed proxy voting. During this time, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle cast votes regularly by requesting in writing that a member who was present vote in their place. At the time, Johnson signed onto a legal brief contesting the practice as illegal. And once Republicans gained control over the House in 2023, then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy banned proxy voting.

Most Republican members are, at this time, strictly opposed to proxy voting.

“The speaker needs to kill it,” said Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina, who sits on the Rules Committee. “If it includes the father, I can’t support it,” Representative Dan Meuser, a Pennsylvania Republican who had initially backed the resolution, said. “If it was strictly for the mom, call me a traditionalist, then I’d honestly be for it. That’s why I signed it.”

Rich McCormick, who had also previously supported the effort, said he changed his mind after speaking with leadership about the issue, adding that the situation taught him to “look before you jump.”

Luna has tried to convince her colleagues that this resolution could uniquely benefit Republicans in the short term.

“You have a Republican male who has his wife due in May, you have another Republican that just announced yesterday that she’s pregnant,” she said. “What if I get pregnant? Is it going to be a problem that we’re not here?”

For some of the Representatives pushing the resolution, this is deeply personal.

When Luna was pregnant, she developed high blood pressure right before giving birth, a potentially fatal condition known as pre-eclampsia that affects some pregnant people. She continued to struggle after giving birth, developing mastitis, an infection common among women who are nursing. This led her doctors to advise her not to travel back to Washington for a key vote at the time.

“I just don’t think it’s fair to remove moms from the conversation,” Luna told NBC. “I can’t help having a baby. It’s a part of my life, and so I shouldn’t be discriminated against because of it.”

Representative Pettersen made headlines when, in February, she flew across the country with her 4-week-old infant in order to vote “No” on the Republican budget proposal. She wanted to vote by proxy, but wasn’t allowed to.

“Unfortunately, I wasn’t given the opportunity to vote remotely after giving birth,” Pettersen said, while bouncing baby. “But I wasn’t going to let that stop me from being here to represent my constituents.”

The congresswoman was again in Washington this week with her newborn to push for House members to sign onto the discharge petition.

“Sam is only 6 weeks old,” she said of her son, “but he got to be a part of changing hearts and minds and addressing a barrier that prevents regular people from serving in Congress.”