Luna, Johnson Set for House Floor Showdown on Proxy Voting for New Parents

The push to give members of Congress who are new parents 12 weeks to vote remotely has divided Republicans.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) (L) participates in a ceremonial swearing-in with Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) (R), her husband Andrew Gamberzky, and her son at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 3, 2025. Alex Wong/Getty Images

WASHINGTON—Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) are set for a showdown on the floor of the House of Representatives next week over Luna’s push to allow proxy voting for members of Congress who are new parents.

The House is expected to vote on a resolution first introduced by Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-Colo.), who gave birth to a son in January, that would allow new parents in Congress to vote remotely rather than attending the Capitol in person for up to 12 weeks. They would need to notify the House clerk of their proxy votes.

Luna, who gave birth in 2023 during her freshman year in Congress, then took up the cause by leading a discharge petition—a parliamentary maneuver to force a vote on the issue on the House floor—in spite of Johnson’s opposition to the bill.

Luna’s petition has the backing of 206 Democrats and 12 Republicans—just enough to pass the 218-vote threshold needed to force a floor vote.

On April 1, Johnson and House Republican leadership sought to head off the vote through a parliamentary move seeking to block the petition from reaching the floor. Specifically, leadership brought a vote on an unrelated rule related to an election integrity bill that would have also tabled further consideration of Luna’s petition.

Their move failed to gain the support of the House, with nine Republicans joining all Democrats in voting against the motion, allowing Luna’s petition to progress but at the same time blocking the election integrity bill from coming to the floor.

Luna was critical of the move, describing it in a post on social media platform X as “playing political games.”

“Republicans have had the majority as well as the ability to bring legislation to the floor on election integrity and rogue judges for months,” Luna wrote. “Yet, at the last minute, leadership chose to tie my discharge petition to a rules package that would permanently paint me and the members supporting it as being anti-election integrity.”

Republican divisions over Luna’s push have also led her to leave the House Freedom Caucus, of which she had been a member since joining the lower chamber in 2023.

Leaders have said that Article 1, Section 5 of the Constitution requires in-person voting to form a quorum. An additional motive could be the thin division of the House, as Republicans currently can spare just three defections on any party-line measure.

Leaders have indicated in comments to reporters that they are considering pursuing another measure to block the discharge petition vote. It is unclear whether it would be more successful than the initial vote.

Supporters of the resolution say it provides needed accommodations for members taking care of newborns.

“Congress makes no accommodations for new parents, so while I’m recovering and taking care of my newborn at this critical time, it’s incredibly unfair that my constituents will not have a voice in Congress until I am physically able to return to Washington,” Pettersen, the sponsor of the resolution, said in a statement.

“No Member should have to choose between caring for their newborn and representing their constituents.”

Pettersen appeared on the House floor with her newborn on April 1 ahead of the procedural vote that sought to thwart the resolution from being brought to the floor.

She also voted a little less than a month after the birth of her son against the House GOP budget resolution to unlock a process the party will look to use to pass President Donald Trump’s agenda.

“No parent should have to choose between caring for their child, or recovering from childbirth, and fulfilling their duties in Congress to represent their constituents,” Luna said in a statement.

Luna has described the resolution as “pro-family.”

Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), a supporter of the resolution, said in a statement that she froze her eggs and “delayed starting a family partly because of the demands of [the] job and the constant travel.” This was in 2021, when she was a freshman member of Congress.

In a lengthy social media post on April 2, Johnson expressed empathy for those juggling family life with serving in Congress. But the Constitution, he said, does not allow for proxy voting.

“The procedural vote yesterday was our effort to advance President Trump’s important legislative agenda while disabling a discharge petition that would force proxy voting and open a dangerous Pandora’s box for the institution,” he wrote.

“To allow proxy voting for one category of Members would open the door for many others, and ultimately result in remote voting that would harm the operation of our deliberative body and diminish the critical role of the legislative branch.”

Proxy voting was also controversial between 2020 and 2023, when House members were allowed to vote remotely amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This led to some alleged abuses of the privilege by members.