BURSTAn effort by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to stop Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s (R-Fla.) push for allowing proxy voting for new parents is on thin ice as a number of Republicans warn they may vote against leadership’s hardball tactic.
Such a move on the arcane procedural matter would amount to a major rebellion against GOP leaders, weaken their control over the House floor, and alter how the chamber functions.
Luna successfully spearheaded a discharge petition that allows her to force a vote on Rep. Brittney Petersen’s (D-Colo.) resolution to greenlight proxy voting for new parents, getting the required 218 signatures — including from 11 other Republicans. That means if the resolution was to come to the floor as-is, it would very likely pass.
But the House Rules Committee advanced a rule on Tuesday morning that includes language that would essentially “turn off” privilege, blocking Luna or her allies from forcing action on the proxy voting legislation. The same rule would advance bills related to judicial rulings and proof of citizenship for voting, meaning anyone voting to allow the proxy voting legislation to come to the floor would also be blocking GOP priorities.
Some of the dozen Republicans who signed the discharge petition — and others — are threatening to vote "no" anyway when the rule hits the floor at 1:30 p.m.
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) said he will “probably” vote against the rule Tuesday afternoon, while Reps. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) and Nick Lalota (R-N.Y.) said they are considering it. Rep. Michael Rulli (R-Ohio) said “I’m gonna take all options on the table” when asked how he will vote on the rule, and Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) and Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) told The Hill they are undecided.
Burchett, Crenshaw, Rulli and Lawler all signed Luna’s discharge petition.
Republicans can only afford to lose two of their members on the procedural vote, assuming all Democrats are in opposition and there is full attendance. With those tight margins, the outcome is poised to be a photo-finish.
“That’s gonna be very close,” Burchett said when asked if the rule would fail.
Leadership, for its part, is confident they will have the votes to adopt the rule and bury the proxy voting discharge petition.
“I’m not concerned about it,” Johnson said when asked by The Hill if he is worried about the rule potential failing. “It's a difficult situation, but I think we're doing the right thing here.”
If the GOP lawmakers successfully torpedo the procedural vote, it would block consideration of two unrelated GOP priorities: 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.
Democrats say they have good enough attendance on Tuesday to really squeeze the House GOP on the vote.
"It’s hanging in the balance because we actually have a very good attendance today and if every Democrat votes it would only take a couple of Republicans to join us to kill this,” Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) said. “All I know is Luna’s working really hard on her fellow Republicans."
The pushback is not limited to those who support the underlying resolution.
LaLota said he is still deciding how he feels about proxy voting for new parents, but said he will probably vote against the rule in protest of the leadership tactic.
“She should be able to have her time, her day in court, and you shouldn't use the rules committee or the rules process to quash” the discharge petition, LaLota said of Luna and her push.
Crenshaw railed against leadership for their tactic of adding language to the rule, calling it “a bad idea” because “it’s adding extra divisiveness on this divisive topic.” He also criticized Johnson’s argument against proxy voting. The Speaker has said the practice is unconstitutional, while warning that the parental proxy voting resolution would be a slippery slope of expanding the practice.
“His arguments aren’t very good,” Crenshaw said. “I think the apocalyptic predictions that the other side makes, the other side being the one who don’t want proxy voting, makes about this issue are just not based in reality, it’s a slippery slope fallacy argument. Like, if you do this now it’ll obviously end up with everything doing this all the time. Of course it won’t.”
Tuesday afternoon’s vote will be the culmination of a weeks-long push by Luna to force a vote on allowing proxy voting for new parents, and Johnson’s effort to stop that crusade in its tracks.
GOP leaders at first tried to get the Republicans who signed the petition to change their minds — and did get Reps. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) and Dan Meuser (R-Pa.), who signed the discharge petition, to back off their support. Both of them confirmed they will vote for the rule.
But hardline members of the House Freedom Caucus — Luna’s one-time allies — pushed for Johnson to take a more aggressive stance in trying to stop a vote on the push.
That infuriated Luna, who announced her departure from the Freedom Caucus on Monday, writing: “I cannot remain part of a caucus where a select few operate outside its guidelines, misuse its name, broker backroom deals that undermine its core values and where the lines of compromise and transaction are blurred, disparage me to the press, and encourage misrepresentation of me to the American people.”
Johnson said he met with Luna in his office at 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday.
And the Speaker brushed off concern about the precedent of killing a discharge petition.
“We used a rule to change a rule on something that would change the rules of the House itself,” Johnson said. “So this is all within the system. It's all within the process.”