A bipartisan group of House lawmakers have cleared a major hurdle to force a vote allowing proxy voting for new parents in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), Brittany Pettersen (D-CO), Sara Jacobs (D-CA) and Mike Lawler (R-NY) sponsored the resolution which would allow new parents to designate a colleague to cast votes in their place for up to 12 weeks after welcoming a new child. They used a process called a discharge petition, which requires 218 House members to sign, to schedule a vote even without the support of the chamber’s leadership.
The bipartisan group hit that magic number Tuesday afternoon, with Lawler being the 218th signature, a day after the petition went live.
“While Speaker Johnson decided to not move forward with our resolution – despite bipartisan support – we refused to back down. I’m so grateful for all the people who stepped up and helped us get one step closer to modernizing Congress,” said Pettersen. She was in D.C. with her newborn this week. “Sam is only 6 weeks old, but he got to be a part of changing hearts and minds and addressing a barrier that prevents regular people from serving in Congress.”
The issue has support from a wide cross section of the house, including Luna, a House Freedom Caucus member. She said members of Congress shouldn’t have to choose between their constituents and their family.
“We have received overwhelming support from a majority of the conference and have ensured that this legislation is in line with the constitution. If Congress wants to have a governing body that is truly reflective of the American people, it should allow and encourage new parents to vote while in office,” she said in a statement.
The resolution won’t be brought to the floor for a vote quickly though. The House is on recess until March 24. Even then the motion to discharge has to be on the calendar for at least seven legislative days before it can be eligible to be discharged. The House would have to first vote to discharge the bill before it could be considered on the floor and then actually voted on.
Three other Colorado House members signed the petition besides Pettersen. They were Reps. Diana DeGette, Joe Neguse and Jason Crow. While nearly all of the signatures came from Democrats, ten other Republicans also bucked leadership to sign onto the petition.
Usually it is rare for discharge petitions to be successful because they’re a direct challenge to leadership, but this is the 3rd petition to get the requisite number of signatures during House Speaker Mike Johnson’s tenure.
The other two discharge petition bills, the Social Security Fairness Act and one that addressed tax relief for victims of natural disaster, both became law.
Johnson has not been supportive of proxy voting, even as he himself used it when House Democrats allowed the practice. He helped lead a lawsuit against Democrats to end proxy voting during COVID, calling it unconstitutional.
