Speaker Mike Johnson and Florida GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna say they have cut a deal to end the fight over proxy voting for new parents, which will re-open the House floor after nearly a week of legislative paralysis.
House Republican leaders will formalize “vote pairing,” a procedure that allows a member who is absent during a vote to coordinate with a present member on the other side of the matter to offset the absence, multiple sources familiar with the deal told ABC News.
For example, the procedure in this case would allow a new mother, who is absent for a House vote, to team up with a present lawmaker voting opposite from their stance to form a “pair.”
Some logistics of this deal remain unclear including how this will be enforced.
Vote pairing — which is a rare practice in Congress — is certainly not an equivalent to remote voting but allows for an absence to be offset. But the absent member’s vote is not recorded into the tally of a recorded vote.
The vote pairing process was used in 2018 when the Senate voted to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. At the time, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who said she would vote against Kavanaugh, paired her vote with Sen. Steve Daines’ of Montana so their votes would cancel out.
Johnson laid out the specifics of the agreement on a GOP member conference call Sunday afternoon, sources said.
In light of the deal, sources said Rep. Luna will not trigger her bipartisan discharge petition — which has 218 signatures — to allow mothers and fathers to vote remotely for up to 12 weeks after childbirth.
“Speaker Johnson and I have reached an agreement and are formalizing a procedure called ‘live/dead pairing’—dating back to the 1800s—for the entire conference to use when unable to physically be present to vote: new parents, bereaved, emergencies,” Rep. Luna posted in a statement on X.
Luna thanked President Donald Trump for his “support” of new mothers. “If we truly want a pro-family Congress, these are the changes that need to happen,” she added.
It is possible for other members — including any Democrat who signed the petition — to call up and force action on Rep. Luna’s measure. But it would likely fail if Republicans stick to the vote pairing agreement.
Johnson is still looking at ways to increase accessibility for new mothers in Congress like adding a room off the House floor for nursing mothers, sources said.
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