Today’s notice: How to get a grilled cheese in Congress. When the culture war doesn’t save money. Betting on the Super Bowl… presidential interview.
How Proxy Voting Happens in a Congress That Banned It
On at least two recent occasions, pregnant members of Congress have asked the House to allow them to vote by proxy when they were unable to travel. Republican Anna Paulina Luna brought it up in 2023, and Democrat Brittany Pettersen did this year. Both were told House rules do not allow it. Speaker Mike Johnson has said his hands are tied by the Constitution.
Turns out proxy voting is a fairly common “open secret” in the House, NOTUS’ Emily Kennard and Haley Byrd Wilt report. The difference between the common kind and what the pregnant members have asked for is basically semantics: They want to be at home following medical advice and still do their jobs, and the current practice is members physically handing each other voting cards when they are peckish or when nature calls. (Our reporters “noticed a member carrying multiple voting cards outside the men’s bathroom in the Speaker’s Lobby.”)
“They’ll give their card to one [another] to vote, but after confirming if they’re a yes or a no,” one Republican member told us. The member “believed it sometimes happens because lawmakers are ‘just comfortable’ in the cloakroom off the House floor.”