The proposed rule change would allow new parents to designate other House members to vote on their behalf for up to 12 weeks.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) has garnered enough support to force a floor vote on a proposal to allow new parents in the House to vote by proxy.
The resolution would allow House members who just gave birth—or whose spouses just gave birth—to designate another member to vote on their behalf for up to 12 weeks. Proxy voting would also be an option for expectant mothers whose pregnancies pose a serious medical condition or have rendered them unable to travel safely.
Luna filed a motion called a discharge petition on March 10 to secure a vote on the legislation’s release from the House Rules Committee. The proposal crossed the 218-signature threshold required to trigger that vote within 48 hours of its filing.
The Epoch Times contacted Luna’s office for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.
Luna introduced the resolution in January alongside a bipartisan group of lawmakers. She cited her own experience giving birth to her first child as the source of her support for the rule change.
“Leadership told me last year that I couldn’t vote by proxy. I had a brutal recovery and was advised by doctors not to travel,” Luna said in a video message.
“New mothers in Congress should not be forced to choose their careers over children or choose children over their careers.”
For more than a month, the resolution has idled in committee amid opposition from GOP leadership.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has said he will not support the proposal as he considers proxy voting unconstitutional.
“It’s unfortunate. I have great sympathy, empathy for all of our young women legislators who are of birthing age,” Johnson, a constitutional law attorney, told NBC News in January.
“It’s a real quandary. But I’m afraid it doesn’t fit with the language of the Constitution, and that’s the inescapable truth that we have.”
The Constitution requires that a majority of the House, or a quorum, be physically present to conduct business.
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) criticized Johnson’s comments via social media, noting that the speaker, like many other lawmakers, voted by proxy “dozens of times” during the 117th Congress, when the House adopted the tool to help limit the spread of COVID-19.
Prior to the pandemic, proxy voting had only ever been used in House committee meetings, and that practice had not been permitted since the early 1990s, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Although some used the tool themselves, Republican leadership decried proxy voting as unconstitutional and challenged its legality in court. They ultimately lost that battle in 2022, when the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, but struck proxy voting from the rules when they regained control of the House in 2023. Another lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton remains ongoing.
McGovern pointed to Johnson’s votes on an assault weapons ban, a community violence prevention bill, and the Respect for Marriage Act, all of which were recorded by proxy.
“Proxy voting is good enough for Speaker Johnson to use to make his own life easier. … But it’s apparently not good enough for new parents to be able to continue representing their constituents,” McGovern said.
The congressman was one of 206 Democrats to sign Luna’s petition. The full list of signatories will now be printed in the Congressional Record, and the discharge motion will be added to the House Calendar. It will be at least one week before the motion can be made on the House floor.