Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday tried and failed to kill a bipartisan effort to change House rules so that new lawmakers would temporarily be allowed to vote remotely after the birth of a child, suffering an embarrassing defeat that signaled that the proposal could soon be adopted.
In using strong-arm tactics to try to block the measure, Mr. Johnson was attempting an extraordinary use of the speaker’s power to prevent the chamber from even considering a measure backed by half its members. But he failed to peel off enough Republican votes to block the proposal, instead receiving a public rebuke at the hands of members of both parties.
The showdown on the House floor was a capstone of a long-running fight over the rights of new parents in Congress.
The saga began over a year ago, when Representative Anna Paulina Luna, Republican of Florida, began agitating for a change to House rules that would allow new mothers to designate a colleague to vote by proxy on their behalf for up to six weeks after giving birth. Ms. Luna landed on the idea after her own child was born.
There is no maternity or paternity leave for members of Congress, who can take time away from the office without sacrificing their pay but cannot vote if they are not physically in the Capitol. Proponents of the change have called it a common-sense fix to modernize Congress, where more women and more younger members serve now than did 200 years ago.
Democrats including Representatives Brittany Pettersen of Colorado, who gave birth to her second child earlier this year, and Sara Jacobs of California joined Ms. Luna’s effort, expanding the resolution to include new fathers and up to 12 weeks of proxy voting during a parental leave.
But Mr. Johnson has adamantly opposed them at every turn, arguing that proxy voting is unacceptable and unconstitutional, even though the Supreme Court refused to take up a Republican-led lawsuit challenging pandemic-era proxy voting rules in the House.
And on Tuesday, he used an unprecedented parliamentary maneuver to close off the only path that members of the House have for steering around their leaders and forcing a vote on a measure that has majority support.
But that measure failed on the floor by a vote of 222 to 206, keeping alive the proxy voting proposal, which now must be considered within two days. Nine Republicans joined all Democrats in voting no.
Mr. Johnson and his allies have argued that any accommodation that allows members to vote without being physically at the Capitol, no matter how narrow, creates a slippery slope for more, and that it harms member collegiality.
“I do believe it’s an existential issue for this body,” Representative Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina and chairwoman of the Rules Committee, said on Tuesday. “Congress is defined as the ‘act of coming together and meeting.’”
Later on the floor, Ms. Foxx asserted flatly, “Put simply, members of Congress need to show up for work.”
When Mr. Johnson refused to bring the bill to the floor, Ms. Luna and her cohorts successfully used a tool called the discharge petition — a demand signed by 218 members of the House, the majority of the body — to force consideration of the measure.
But on Tuesday morning, Republicans on the House Rules Committee, often referred to as the “speaker’s committee” because the speaker uses it to maintain control of the floor, engineered a tricky behind-the-scenes maneuver to kill the broadly popular effort.
They approved a measure that would block the proxy voting bill or any legislation on a similar topic from reaching the floor during the remainder of the Congress, effectively nullifying the discharge petition and closing off any chance for its supporters to secure a vote on the matter for the next two years.
G.O.P. lawmakers inserted it into an unrelated resolution to allow for a vote on the SAVE Act, legislation requiring people to prove their citizenship when they register to vote, in a bid to pressure Republicans to support it. That is the measure that failed on Tuesday on the floor.
Democrats implored Republicans to consider a change they argued was vital to allowing all lawmakers to do their jobs in the 21st century.
“It is unfathomable that in 2025 we have not modernized Congress to address these very unique challenges that members face — these life events, where our voices should still be heard, our constituents should still be represented,” Ms. Pettersen said on the House floor, holding her 9-week-old son, Sam, who gurgled in her arms.
She denounced Mr. Johnson’s maneuver, saying “It is anti-woman. It is anti-family.”
And they called the move an unprecedented attempt to shut down a crucial mechanism in the House for ensuring that measures that have majority support are voted upon.
“Republicans love to talk about family values, but when given the chance to actually support families, they turn their backs,” said Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts. “If you want to protect your rights as members of Congress, you should vote no here.”
In trying to block the measure, Mr. Johnson took a gamble, risking public humiliation in a bid to thwart a resolution that had support from members of both parties.
Mr. Johnson even leaned on President Trump to help him, people familiar with the conversations said, hoping the president could urge Ms. Luna, a stalwart Trump supporter, to stand down. The pressure campaign, however, appeared to have only strengthened Ms. Luna’s resolve.
On Monday, Ms. Luna resigned from the House Freedom Caucus, citing its members’ unwillingness to back her in what she called a “modest, family-centered proposal.”
Walking out of the Capitol on Monday night, she told reporters she would not back down.
“There is clearly support for allowing young moms and families in Washington have a voice,” she said. “I’ve been a very straight broker, all my cards on the table. There’s no weird backdoor dealings on my end.”
Mr. Johnson’s view is in line with the longtime Republican position on proxy voting.
Republicans savaged former Speaker Nancy Pelosi for breaking with centuries of history and House rules by instituting proxy voting during the coronavirus pandemic. When he was minority leader, Representative Kevin McCarthy filed an unsuccessful lawsuit arguing that allowing a member of Congress to deputize a colleague to cast a vote on their behalf when they were not present was unconstitutional.
Annie Karni is a congressional correspondent for The Times. She writes features and profiles, with a recent focus on House Republican leadership. More about Annie Karni
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