House adopts vote-pairing for new parents and other lawmakers who need to vote from afar

The House on Tuesday formalized a process to allow lawmakers who just had a baby or otherwise need to take an emergency leave of absence to register their votes from afar.

The vote-pairing arrangement, brokered between House Speaker Mike Johnson and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, was opposed by Democrats, who preferred a measure to reinstate a limited form of proxy voting for new parents.

“The changes agreed upon by the speaker are not a win for us,” Rep. Brittany Pettersen, Colorado Democrat, said in floor remarks while holding her infant son. “They do not address the challenges that we’ve worked so hard to overcome. And the speaker has turned his back on moms and dads in Congress and working families across the country.”

Under vote pairing, an absent lawmaker can pair up with a House member who would be voting the opposite way.

The present member of the pair would withdraw their vote, so it is not counted, effectively offsetting the absent members’ vote. In the process, the present member would announce the pair arrangement and how each member should be recorded for the Congressional Record.

Ms. Luna said vote pairing, which the House last used in the 105th Congress, is “a good midway” solution to the problem she was trying to solve of allowing lawmakers who are pregnant or just gave birth to be able to vote while they’re unable to be physically present in Washington.

Ms. Pettersen thanked Ms. Luna for “being a champion” on the issue but said that vote pairing is “not a workable solution.”

Many votes in the House fall along party lines, so finding a pair would often involve cooperation from someone across the aisle who is willing to only have their position be recorded in the congressional record.

“Do you think that there would be one Republican here today that would stand and vote present on the bills this week coming forward on my behalf?” Ms. Pettersen said. “I don’t think so.”

Ms. Luna and Ms. Pettersen had partnered on an alternative measure that would have brought back a limited form of proxy voting for new parents.

Proxy voting, which Democrats instituted during the pandemic but Republicans later repealed,  lets lawmakers who must take a leave of absence designate another member to vote on their behalf.

The measure from Ms. Luna and Ms. Pettersen had the support of a majority of the House, which the lawmakers demonstrated with a discharge petition signed by 218 members, 12 Republicans and 206 Democrats.

The discharge petition would have allowed the supporters to force a vote, but Ms. Luna’s deal with the speaker involved killing it.

Mr. Johnson opposes proxy voting, arguing it is unconstitutional and bringing it back for new parents would have opened a “pandora’s box.” He sent the House home early last week when his effort to kill the discharge petition failed.

The speaker held talks with Ms. Luna over the weekend after President Trump endorsed her push to allow new parents to vote and they came up with the vote pairing compromise to avoid bringing back proxy voting.

House Rules Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Republican, praised Mr. Johnson for “helping maintain a strong family-centric posture here in the people’s House” without giving in to the discharge petition.

“It is not the prerogative of this Republican majority now, nor will it ever be, to use tools of the minority to secure legislative victories,” she said. “Republicans are the ones manning the helm here and we must act like it.”

Ms. Foxx said the compromise on vote pairing “is a viable pathway forward” that is grounded in House practices and precedents – “and ultimately common sense.”

“It is a tried and true method and it broadens the ability of people who cannot be here to vote to be able to vote,” she said. “We’ve had situations where we’ve had people rolled in on gurneys to be able to vote.”

A House resolution formalizing the vote pairing arrangement was deemed adopted on Tuesday as part of a rule for unrelated legislation, as was a provision killing the discharge petition. The 213-211 vote for the rule fell mostly along party lines, as is customary, save for one Republican, Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, who voted “no.”

Democrats were upset not only about the solution but that the move to allow vote-pairing wasn’t getting its own debate and was simply deemed adopted as part of the rule setting up debate on other bills.

“We’re not voting on any kind of compromise here. It’s being deemed,” said Jim McGovern, Massachusetts Democrat and Rules Committee ranking member.

“Paired voting, if it was such a good idea, why did we get rid of it 25 years ago?” he said, calling it “a glorified way to highlight to people that you’re absent.”

Alex Miller contributed to this report.