Should the House of Representatives allow members of Congress to vote from home? (Paul Bersebach/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images)
That constituted voting in the House during the darkest days of the pandemic.
Social distancing spurred proxy voting in the House. It was probably not the best idea to squeeze 435 people into the House at the same time when COVID-19 raged in 2020. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., and former Rep. Ben McAdams, D-Utah, tested positive in mid-March, 2020. McAdams was hospitalized for more than a week after experiencing shortness of breath.
It took a while, but the House eventually adopted remote voting. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., initially had reservations about the practice, but as the pandemic intensified, proponents argued that flying scores of lawmakers from all around the country into Washington and back to their districts wasn’t feasible or maybe safe.
So the House implemented proxy voting.
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Then-Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., conducts a news conference in the U.S. Capitol's Statuary Hall on Thursday, Jan. 12, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Democrats pointed to health and safety. Many Republicans in turn pointed to the Constitution. Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution, which says that "a Majority of each (chamber) shall constitute a Quorum to do business."
The GOP asserted that anything the House was doing – under proxy voting and Democratic control – was unconstitutional. Members had to be there in person. Yet many Republicans eventually began engaging in the practice – even while some spoke out against remote voting.
Fast-forward to the present.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., gave birth to a son during the summer of 2023. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, D-Colo., gave birth to a son in January. Pettersen was just the 13th woman ever to give birth while in office.
But, becoming a new mom doesn’t always comport with the intense schedule mandated for Members of Congress. Traveling to and from Washington, D.C., lawmakers are routinely expected to be in three places at once: meeting with constituents, voting on the floor and perhaps attending a committee hearing. You get the idea.
Then there are actual health concerns for new moms. Doctors put some pregnant moms on bedrest.
"Congress needs to be more accessible to regular people," said Pettersen. "I wasn't actually able to fly from Colorado to DC to vote a few weeks before giving birth because of the medical restrictions."
Luna had a similar experience.
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Sunrise light hits the U.S. Capitol dome on Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025, as the 119th Congress is set to begin. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
In 2002, the House successfully adopted a discharge petition for the landmark "McCain-Feingold" campaign finance law.
Another discharge petition wasn’t successful until there was a bipartisan plan to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank in 2015.
But discharge petitions got a boost recently. The House adopted two last year alone. One was a package on natural disaster tax relief. Members also advanced a discharge petition to curb the reduction of Social Security payments to senior citizens. But over the past quarter-century, only four discharge petitions collected the requisite signatures to compel House action.
The remote voting discharge petition by Luna and Pettersen collected enough signatures last week. That will trigger the House to consider the plan on proxy voting for moms and parents – unless House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., can convince the sponsors to dial things back.
Johnson opposes remote voting.
"I'm afraid the whole thing is unconstitutional. "So I've tried to discuss this with Anna, and she's pretty stubborn about it," said Johnson.
Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., is the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee. He argued that the GOP backlash to proxy voting "was insane" during the pandemic, but then McGovern called out Johnson.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson is pictured in front of the U.S. Capitol. (Getty Images/AP)
Fox is told that Johnson could prepare a special rule from the Rules Committee to potentially impede the Luna/Pettersen plan. Under House rules, this plan could make the proxy voting plan only available on the second or fourth Monday of the month, but this approach is unwieldy at best.
The House is scheduled to be out of session on the second Monday of the month, April 14, but it does meet on Monday, April 28. So, it’s possible this could string out the plan until then.
Fox is also told that the House Republican leaders may want to rip the Band-Aid off right away. That could prompt immediate action on the plan when the House returns next week.
Keep in mind that signing the discharge petition only makes it available to come to the floor. The cohort of 218 members who signed the discharge petition are not bound to vote in favor of any of the procedural steps just outlined. They are also not required to vote for the actual change, allowing for remote voting.
That’s why there could be lots of arm-twisting behind the scenes by members who don’t want the House to adopt this plan.
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Regardless, when the House does consider any of these machinations, members will have to vote in person in the chamber. At least for now.
Ninety percent of success in life is just showing up. But new parents who double as House Members might argue that success on the home front supersedes that.
Chad Pergram currently serves as a senior congressional correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC). He joined the network in September 2007 and is based out of Washington, D.C.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/reporters-notebook-voting-from-home