The battle between Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) and House GOP leaders over looming floor action to allow proxy voting for new parents is intensifying as both sides of the heated debate dig in their heels — with the clash potentially coming to a head as soon as next week.
Luna says she has no intention of backing down from her effort — despite leadership offering her prime committee spots or other incentives, she claims — and remains confident she will succeed.
“I don’t play to lose,” Luna told reporters. “You guys will have a good news cycle next week.”
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), meanwhile, spent this week trying to convince other Republicans to oppose proxy voting, which he argues is unconstitutional and creates a slippery slope — successfully persuading some GOP lawmakers to change their minds.
But the Speaker is quickly running out of carrots and, as a result, is being pushed by other anti-proxy voting members to take a more aggressive approach — including pitching a way to “turn off” the procedural privilege mechanism that would allow her to force a vote, according to a source.
Luna circumvented GOP leadership by getting signatures from 218 members — including 11 other Republicans — on a rarely successful tool known as a discharge petition to force floor action on the matter. The underlying resolution is led by Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-Colo.), who had a son in January, and would allow members who give birth or lawmakers whose spouses give birth to designate another member to vote on their behalf for 12 weeks.
Proxy voting was widely used by both parties when it was implemented under Democratic leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it drew widespread Republican criticism and unsuccessful legal challenges.
Johnson and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) — a member of the House Rules Committee — met with Luna on Wednesday to discuss a path forward. But the Florida Republican says nothing has changed on her end.
“I’m not changing anything, I haven’t heard any suggestions or anything that would help do this in [an] easier fashion,” Luna told reporters on Thursday.
Her effort, however, appears to be bleeding some support.
Two Republicans who previously signed the discharge petition — Reps. Dan Meuser (Pa.) and Rich McCormick (Ga.) — told The Hill they are no longer in support of the effort, depriving Luna of two of her 11 key GOP backers.
Meuser is voicing opposition to language in the legislation that would allow new dads to also vote by proxy — a change from Luna’s original proposal when she was pushing the idea last year.
“If it includes the father I can’t support it,” Meuser said, worrying about the slippery slope of what other situations could prompt proxy voting demands in the future. “If it was strictly for the mom, call me a traditionalist, then I’d honestly be for it. That’s why I signed it.”
McCormick said he changed his mind after talking to leadership about the issue, adding the situation taught him to “look before you jump.”
Other Republicans, meanwhile, are considering calling it quits. Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) said Wednesday that he signed the petition to support Luna, but that he “may not support it on the floor.”
The clock is ticking, and leaders are searching for an off-ramp.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) told reporters Thursday that opponents of the push “are gonna look at every option within the rules to advance our position.”
It takes seven legislative days for a discharge petition to “ripen” before Luna or another member who signed can trigger a privileged motion to force leadership to consider the measure on the floor. The earliest that could happen is next week, but Luna is keeping her cards close to the vest when it comes to timing so as to not tip off leadership.
The high risk of the proxy voting measure getting to the floor and being adopted is alarming hard-line conservatives who have normally been Luna’s allies, with many members of the House Freedom Caucus mounting their own mini-rebellion Tuesday by withholding support for an unrelated procedural vote in order to talk to leadership about their concerns about the strategy for squashing it.
“We just think that proxy voting is unconstitutional and just shouldn’t be allowed,” said Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), the chair of the Freedom Caucus. “You should have to come here in person, convene, just like the founders meant.”
Luna, though, said Harris gave her a commitment that the group would not take an official stance on the bill.
There are a number of other procedural avenues that leaders could attempt in order to try to thwart the proxy voting proposal.
The latest option being pushed is language to “turn off” the privilege that would force leadership to consider the proxy voting resolution — likely adding it to an unrelated procedural resolution.
That would likely mean Luna would have to get her allies to stick together to overcome that hurdle, either voting it down or banding with her to force a vote in another way. House Rules Committee ranking member Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said he expected all Democrats to support such a move, and Luna would only need support from a few Republicans to defy GOP leadership, depending on attendance.
It’s far from clear, however, that Republicans who support Luna’s resolution are willing to go that far.
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), another member who signed the discharge petition, said while he supports the principle, he would not commit to standing with Luna to overcome other procedural hurdles that leadership might throw at her effort to stop it. (Donalds was recently accused of having another member vote on his behalf electorally while he filmed a TV show in California. He declined to comment on the matter on Thursday.)
And one other Republican member who co-sponsored the proxy voting resolution does not support it strongly enough to weigh in in that way, a source told The Hill.
In a good sign for Luna, however, she is holding on to support from some GOP lawmakers. Rep. Jeff Van Drew (N.J.), the Democrat-turned-Republican, told The Hill: “I gave her my commitment and my word.”
And Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) is also sticking with her, despite leadership suggesting they would bring some of his bills for a floor vote if he voted against her.
“I was like, voting against pregnant women? Are y’all crazy?” Burchett said.
Luna, who has been publicly peeved that she did not get the spot she wanted on the House Armed Services Committee, said that she has “been reached out to multiple times, offering me positions on different committees.”
“I don’t want it because this is bigger than me. It’s about actually changing the institution for the better,” Luna said.
She has also brushed off constitutional arguments from GOP opponents, referencing a provision in the legislation that says any members voting by proxy will not be counted for the purposes of designating a quorum — an issue that Republicans brought up when proxy voting was widely used for an omnibus spending bill in 2022.
“It’s not like all 435 members are going to run out and get pregnant and then all of a sudden you’re gonna have a massive vote-by-proxy,” Luna said. “That’s simply not possible.”
