An agreement between Speaker Mike Johnson and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna to rely on vote “pairing” for recent and expecting parents falls short of making Congress a more welcoming place for them, Rep. Brittany Pettersen said Monday.
Pettersen, a Colorado Democrat, partnered with the Luna, R-Fla., this Congress to push for changing House rules and allow new mothers and fathers to vote by proxy. Facing headwinds from GOP leadership and the House Freedom Caucus, Luna and Pettersen vowed to fight on, only for Luna to cut a deal over the weekend with Johnson, stymieing the proxy-voting effort.
In a statement posted to the social platform X on Monday, Pettersen was diplomatic and also expressed disappointment.
“We are so grateful to Rep. Anna Paulina Luna for championing this issue that matters deeply to us, and so many other families. Her partnership was essential in building broad bipartisan support,” Pettersen wrote. “But the reality is — this outcome does not address the barriers we’ve fought so hard to overcome.”
Luna defended her decision, telling reporters on Monday night, “I’ve come to an agreement and a reality of what’s happening. … There is not going to be any situation where this is going to end up with the original resolution that we had filed.”
The deal draws on an archaic process allowing lawmakers to seek out pairings with their colleagues, essentially canceling out the missed votes of absent members. It would be open to other House members, not just new parents.
At a House Rules Committee meeting Monday evening, the plan to revive that so-called “dead pairing” option was folded into a rule teeing up votes on unrelated legislation. Using a tactic known as “deem and pass,” the pairing resolution will be considered adopted as soon as the House approves the unrelated rule.
Committee Republicans also included language that would end momentum for the proxy-voting push and effectively send supporters back to square one.
Ranking member Jim McGovern blasted the move, calling it a “trick,” a “fig leaf’ and an “embarrassing capitulation.”
“Because they’re on opposite sides and both missed the vote, they cancel each other out. Does that seem like it’s equivalent to voting?” the Massachusetts Democrat asked at the Rules meeting. “I hope Rep. Luna didn’t get fooled into thinking that this was anything substantial.”
Rules Chair Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said leadership “worked tirelessly” to address Luna’s concerns, describing the dead-pairing solution as “grounded in existing precedents, practices and common sense.”
“We all know she’s well intentioned and holds fast to her principles. I’m glad she stuck with them, even as she sought consensus with her colleagues,” Foxx said of Luna.
Pettersen, who had her second child in January, has spearheaded the proxy-voting push this Congress alongside Luna, who in 2023 joined a small group of members of Congress to ever give birth while in office.
In January, Pettersen introduced a resolution that would allow new parents to tap a colleague to vote on their behalf for up to 12 weeks after the birth of a child. Luna followed in March by filing a discharge petition that quickly garnered the 218 signatures needed to force a vote.
But Johnson, a staunch opponent of proxy voting, dug in and attempted a procedural block.
Last week, House Republicans inserted language into a rule for four unrelated bills that would have quashed the current discharge petition and other similar attempts in the future.
But nine Republicans, including Luna, bucked leadership and helped to vote the rule down, scuttling consideration of several conservative measures in the process. Johnson responded by canceling votes for the rest of the week as he continued to search for ways to block proxy voting, which was permitted by the Democrat-controlled House during the COVID-19 pandemic and was abused by both parties.
After that initial win, proxy supporters said the pairing deal was a letdown.
“It’s a slap in the face to every working parent in Congress. No one should have to choose between caring for a newborn and representing their constituents,” Rep. Jimmy Gomez said in a statement.
“The Dads Caucus will keep fighting for real parental proxy voting, because when Congress reflects the realities of the people we serve, it works better for everyone,” the California Democrat added, referring to a congressional group of dads he chairs.
Luna called pair voting “a start in the right direction.” But she also expressed some lingering frustration toward those in the Republican Conference who blamed the proxy cohort for bringing the House to a halt for the week.
“I think the bigger problem here is that there was a national campaign to basically lie about what actually happened last week,” she said. “I clearly was not responsible for shutting down the floor.”
Johnson has characterized the proxy-voting practice as unconstitutional, though he was among the many members who used it during the pandemic. Even the narrow carveout for recent parents could be a gateway to proxy voting for other reasons, he and other opponents have argued.
“Democrats tried proxy voting before and it was terribly abused. We cannot open that Pandora’s box again,” Johnson wrote on X on Friday.
The debate was further jumbled last week when President Donald Trump inserted himself, seemingly lending his support to Luna. By Friday, however, Johnson and Trump had apparently reached an accord on the issue, with the speaker posting the sentiment he suggested he’d heard from the president: “Mike, you have my proxy on proxy voting.”
At the Rules meeting on Monday evening, Republicans sought to decisively cut off the proxy momentum, inserting language that would table Luna’s discharge motion.
Democrats described that effort as an attack on the discharge petition process itself, which allows rank-and-file members to force a vote on legislation over the objections of leadership.
“Last week’s rule was the first ever in the history of the House of Representatives to try to just outright kill a discharge petition that had already been signed by majority of the House and wasn’t being considered by another method. This week’s rule has the same cowardly language,” McGovern said at Monday’s meeting.
Pettersen, meanwhile, said in her statement that “the fight is far from over,” though she didn’t specify next steps.
“Let’s be clear: these changes are not a win for us and Speaker Johnson has turned his back on moms and dads in Congress and working families,” Pettersen wrote.
Lia Chien and Niels Lesniewski contributed to this report.
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