House Republican leaders on Tuesday canceled votes for the rest of the week after a band of GOP lawmakers staged a rebellion on the floor, bringing legislative action to a screeching halt.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) informed lawmakers the next vote in the House would be Monday evening.
The announcement came minutes after nine Republicans joined all Democrats in opposing a procedural rule that would have killed a bipartisan effort to allow proxy voting for new parents. The vote also blocked planned votes on GOP priorities to limit the power of federal judges and to require proof of citizenship to vote.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) successfully used an arcane and rarely successful discharge petition procedure to force a vote on Rep. Brittany Pettersen’s (D-Colo.) resolution to allow members who give birth or lawmakers whose spouses give birth to have another member vote for them for 12 weeks.
But amid opposition from Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) — who has argued that proxy voting is unconstitutional — the leadership-controlled House Rules Committee inserted language into a procedural rule to kill Luna’s effort.
That hardball tactic, however, failed Tuesday when nine Republicans voted with Democrats to torpedo the procedural vote, bringing key legislative action on the floor to a halt. Without adopting a rule, the House is unable to debate and vote on big-ticket legislative items.
“It’s a very disappointing result on the floor there, a handful of Republicans joined with all Democrats to take down a rule,” Johnson said after the vote. “That’s rarely done.”
The thwarted rule means the House leaders cannot hold votes as planned on the No Rogue Rulings Act, which would limit the power of federal judges to impose nationwide injunctions like those that have blocked Trump administration actions; and the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require proof of citizenship in order to register to vote.
“Let me just make this clear: That rule being brought down means that we can’t have any further action on the floor this week,” he added. “That means we will not be voting on the SAVE Act for election integrity. We will not be voting on the rogue judges who are attacking President Trump’s agenda. We will not be taking down these terrible Biden policies with the CRA votes. All that was just wiped off the table. It’s very unfortunate. We’ll regroup and come back, and we’ll have to do this again.”
The canceled votes raise questions about leadership’s next move.
Luna earlier Tuesday made a privileged motion — enabled by her discharge petition — to force consideration of the proxy voting legislation within two legislative days. Had the House schedule continued as planned, it would have likely come up Friday.
But now, it appears the earliest the resolution could come up is Monday — a fly-in day, when evening House votes typically have lower attendance, a dynamic that could complicate the path for the proxy voting resolution if leaders bring it up.
There is also the possibility that House GOP leaders still take another attempt at preventing the proxy voting for new parents resolution from coming up.
Asked if leadership could mount another effort to do so, however, Luna said, “I don’t think they can.”
Luna spoke to Johnson on the House floor as the vote took place. Luna said he told her, “I know your heart’s in the right place,” while Luna responded, “I hope you have good things to say about this.”
