Democrats on Monday rejected a tentative agreement reached between Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., and Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., which will prevent a resolution permitting parental remote voting by proxy from reaching the House floor for a vote.
The tentative deal, reportedly reached Sunday, ended a standoff that halted legislative work last week and threatened to delay a potential vote this week to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda.
But Democrat Reps. Brittany Pettersen of Colorado, who introduced the resolution, and Sara Jacobs of California, who co-sponsored it with 173 other House members, including Luna, accused Johnson of watering down the proposal while abandoning lawmakers with young families.
“I won’t accept the way Congress has always done things, and the American people won’t either,” Jacobs said in a news release. “We will keep pushing for innovative ways to support young people and parents in Congress — including by modernizing how we vote — even if it takes a Democratic majority to do so.”
Luna agreed to not trigger her discharge petition, which allows any lawmaker to bring legislation to the House floor without a committee report, and Johnson won’t try to kill the resolution. Last month, Luna filed her discharge petition and received the backing of 218 lawmakers, including six Republicans — enough to allow the resolution to proceed to a floor vote.
Johnson last week tried to block the vote from happening, installing special instructions in a rule that would prevent the bill from reaching the floor. Behind Luna, nine Republicans joined Democrats in killing that rule, which forced Johnson to cancel votes for the rest of the week.
Luna wrote Sunday in a post on X that the agreement formalizes a procedure called “live/dead pairing” — dating to the 1800s and used primarily in the Senate. According to a Senate glossary, the move allows an absent member to form a “live pair” with a lawmaker who is present and had planned to take the opposing position on a bill. The member who is in the chamber agrees to vote “present,” canceling the vote of the absent one, and states how the absent member would have voted.
“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 said in the news release.
Democrats could still file their own discharge petition, but because of the agreement, they are unlikely to receive the Republican support Luna’s petition had.
“I am deeply grateful for the outpouring of support from colleagues on both sides of the aisle and the women and moms across the nation,” Pettersen said. “I know that you’re as disappointed as I am that we’re not changing the Rules in Congress to make it more likely that people like us have a seat at the table. But our fight is far from over. I promise I won’t stop working on behalf of moms, our families, and most importantly our kids.”
Proxy voting became controversial after former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., adopted it as a public health precaution in the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. The move was denounced by many Republicans, who characterized remote voting as unconstitutional.
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