House Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday said he remains opposed to reinstituting any form of proxy voting, disputing an account from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna that he agreed to a scaled-back version of her proposal for new mothers.
“Democrats tried proxy voting before and it was terribly abused. We cannot open that Pandora’s box again,” Mr. Johnson, Louisiana Republican, posted on social media.
That contradicts a Thursday night post from Ms. Luna, Florida Republican, who said she and the speaker “discussed limiting the vote to just new moms who cannot physically travel in event of emergency, etc.”
Ms. Luna had gathered the required 218 signatures on a discharge petition needed to force a vote on her resolution to institute a House rule change letting new mothers or fathers vote by proxy for up to 12 weeks after the birth of their child. The measure also would have allowed pregnant mothers whose doctors advised them against travel to begin that 12-week proxy voting period before the child’s birth.
Mr. Johnson’s dispute of a compromise with Ms. Luna put a big question mark over how the issue will be resolved when the House returns next week.
The speaker adjourned the chamber early this week after Ms. Luna, eight other Republicans and all Democrats voted down his procedural effort to block a vote on her proxy voting proposal for new parents. She could have forced her vote this week had the chamber remained in session.
The dispute between Mr. Johnson and Ms. Luna became even more complicated on Thursday after President Trump said he spoke with her and agreed with her aim.
“It’s a little controversial. I don’t know why it’s controversial,” the president said. “I’m going to let the speaker make the decision, but I like the idea of being able to, if you’re having a baby I think you should be able to call in and vote.”
Notably, proxy voting is not a system under which members call in to vote from afar. Rather, it lets lawmakers who must take a leave of absence designate another member to vote on their behalf.
Mr. Johnson and many other Republicans believe proxy voting is unconstitutional.
The speaker said in his social media post on Friday that Mr. Trump deferred to him on resolving the issue, quoting the president, “Mike, you have my proxy on proxy voting.”
“America is grateful to have a President who appreciates and understands the complexity of legislative branch issues and governing with a razor-thin House majority,” Mr. Johnson posted.
The Washington Times reached out to Ms. Luna’s office for comment.
In her social media posts on Thursday, Ms. Luna thanked the president “for supporting a pro-family Congress.”
“To be clear this is something ONLY to be used in an emergency to ensure that constituents are represented in Washington DC,” she wrote.
Ms. Luna said it was Mr. Johnson who called her to discuss a compromise after Mr. Trump weighed in with his support for her side.
She called the idea to limit proxy voting to only new mothers who could not travel “smart” and said there were only 13 instances in U.S. history of a member of Congress giving birth while in office where the proposal would have applied.
Ms. Luna also said she underscored to Mr. Johnson that the proxy voting issue “should not have anything to do with the legislation being passed for the president.”
The speaker had blamed Ms. Luna and the other Republicans who voted to block his effort to turn off her discharge petition for stalling the House’s agenda for that week because the provision was tucked into the rule setting up debate for unrelated legislation.
The rule was set up to bring several bills to the floor, including top GOP priorities, like legislation requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote and a bill to limit district judges from imposing nationwide injunctions like the ones that have halted Mr. Trump’s executive actions.
“Nothing else can proceed for a vote without passing a new rule first, and many Republicans refuse to do so until we stop the proxy initiative,” Mr. Johnson said in a Wednesday social media post explaining why he sent the House home for the week.
It’s not clear how Mr. Johnson will resolve the dispute when the House returns next week. To prevent a vote on Ms. Luna’s proxy voting measure, he would need to convince at least seven of the eight Republicans who joined her in stopping his effort to quash it to reverse course.
