House Republican leaders have tried to quietly try to push to vote remotely for new parents in Congress for 12 weeks.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FLA.) announced on April 3 that she and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) discussed how to move forward on the issue of voting for new parents, an issue that has been splitting Republicans for weeks.
Initially, he supported the efforts of a handful of Republicans. Luna received a great boost to her new parents to vote for the 12-week vote when President Donald Trump gave him his blessing on the same day.
“I like ideas,” Trump told Air Force 1 reporters. “If you’re having a baby, I think you should be able to call and vote.”
Luna forced a vote on the measures of Rep. Brittany Petterson (D-Colo.) to allow new parents to vote on the power of attorney for up to 12 weeks after the birth of their child, but faces opposition from Johnson and the GOP leadership.
Following Trump’s statement in support of Luna’s move, Florida lawmakers announced that she and Johnson have reached a compromise summary.
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This significantly reduces the scope of the resolution, but Luna seemed happy with the proposal by writing “This is clever.” She said only 13 women gave birth while in Congress, potentially minimizing the impact of the deleted proposal.
The obvious compromise marks the end of a long story in which leadership left Republicans who were split up because they tried to hold back the resolution completely.
The leader said the original measures were unconstitutional under Article 5 of the Constitution.
“Allowing proxy voting in one category of members opens the door for many others and ultimately leads to remote voting that will harm the management of deliberative bodies and reduce the important role of the legislative department,” Johnson writes.
Due to leadership opposition, Luna has relied on Congressional measures known as discharge petitions that could force floor voting on the bill.
Speakers usually have almost one-sided authority over what comes to the floor, but discharge petitions requiring a signature of 218 can require that the attached law be brought to the floor without the speaker’s consent or against their wishes.
Luna’s petition won the support of 206 Democrats and 12 Republicans.
On April 1, Johnson and the House Republican leaders sought to reject the vote requested by Luna’s petition through a Congressional move to file a petition through a vote on unrelated rules related to the election integrity bill.
After that effort, Johnson told reporters that he was “very disappointed” by the outcome. Lawmakers were sent home with the rest of the week cancelled sessions.
In a post on X, Luna denounced leadership in the “political game” on Trump’s agenda.
Due to this issue, Luna left the Free Caucus of the House. This is a powerful conservative aspect of the home GOP.
Previously, Johnson and House majority leader Steve Scullies (R-La.) had shown that they remained set to kill the measure.
With the contract summary reached, revised measures could be brought to the floor within next week to vote.
