Speaker Mike Johnson is digging in against allowing proxy voting for the House’s new parents, heightening a standoff with members of his own party that has frozen legislative action in the chamber.
“While I understand the pure motivations of the few Republican proxy vote advocates, I simply cannot support the change they seek,” Johnson said in a Wednesday post on X.
The speaker is in a serious bind after suffering a stunning defeat over a procedural vote Tuesday, prompting him to send the House home until next Monday. Johnson’s initial effort to block a vote on a proxy-voting measure from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) failed after eight fellow Republicans joined her and every Democrat.
Luna was on the cusp of forcing a vote on her bill under a discharge petition, which can circumvent leadership’s control of the floor.
If Johnson attempts a similar move next week, Luna and several of her GOP allies insist they will vote against any effort to reopen the floor. The speaker’s leadership circle, meanwhile, says if he doesn’t try to kill Luna’s petition, House Freedom Caucus hard-liners who oppose proxy voting will themselves defeat any attempt to get House business moving as usual.
Johnson’s circle is aware of the optics of opposing accommodations for new mothers while also upholding their pro-life values and not risking electoral blowback ahead of the midterms.
“As the father of a large family, I know firsthand the difficulty and countless sacrifices that come with balancing family life and service in Congress,” Johnson wrote Wednesday. “New mothers and all young parents face real challenges in this regard. We truly empathize with them.”
But he said he had an obligation to “defend and uphold the Constitution and the integrity of this institution, which has stood the test of time for more than two centuries.”