Rep. Anna Paulina Luna digs in for a fight with Speaker Johnson over proxy voting

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna won’t give up her quest to allow new parents in the House to vote from afar, despite pushback from Republican leaders and fellow members of the House Freedom Caucus.

Republicans bemoaned former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s implementation of proxy voting during the COVID-19 pandemic, arguing that the system was widely abused by lawmakers.

Ms. Luna, Florida Republican, wants a narrower version of proxy voting that would only apply to new mothers and fathers in Congress. Her resolution, which has reached the needed threshold to hit the floor for a vote, would allow a lawmaker to designate a fellow member to vote on their behalf for up to 12 weeks while they’re caring for their child.

She is forcing a vote with a discharge petition, a procedure in the House that allows a lawmaker to gather a simple majority of signatures to force a vote on legislation. The petition has bipartisan support, but Republican leadership and Freedom Caucus members oppose the rule change, arguing it is unconstitutional.

Ms. Luna said she was offered plumb committee assignments “by multiple people” to peel her away from the proxy-voting measure.

“The fact that they are choosing this hill to die on, specifically, I am not going to destroy democracy by allowing female members to vote when recovering from birth,” Ms. Luna said. “And aside from that, the people that are vocal against this, many of them have voted by proxy, even after COVID was no longer a pandemic.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, and his leadership team insist it is unconstitutional and, if adopted, members could find ways to abuse it.

Ms. Luna can force a vote on the measure as early as next week but has closely guarded her plans, fearing Mr. Johnson will try to thwart her play.

House GOP leadership views the discharge petitions as a tool of the minority. Ms. Luna’s proposal is opposed by the vast majority of the House Republicans, with only 12 Republicans including Ms. Luna signed on to it.

She remained confident that her resolution would pass with bipartisan support, however, and noted that House Republicans have told her she was “in the right” despite pushback from leadership.

Mr. Johnson’s team has also been actively whipping members to drop their support of the resolution.

Rep. Tim Burchett, Tennessee Republican, backs Ms. Luna’s push and said that he was asked to reverse course in exchange for the opportunity to have votes on a pair of his bills.

“Somebody said, ’Well, if we got those bills on the floor, would you, would you vote against Luna?’,” Mr. Burchett said. “That’s like voting against pregnant women, are y’all crazy?”

Mr. Johnson and members of his leadership team would not confirm the lawmakers’ accounts.

The speaker’s stance against proxy voting for new parents comes as he commands a razor-thin majority in the House. The majority will be further weakened later this year as Florida Republican Rep. Kat Cammack has announced she is pregnant and due in August.

Ms. Luna said that allowing new parents to vote by proxy would be better for the institution “in the long term.”

“It’s not like all 435 members are gonna run out and get pregnant, then all of a sudden you’re gonna have a massive vote by proxy,” Ms. Luna said. “That’s simply not possible, also too, not the case.”