The debate over a House chamber rule barring voting by proxy has flared up again after a House Republican voted last week despite allegedly not being in Washington, D.C.
The Republican in question, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), shrugged off questions over his use of proxy voting to cast votes, a violation of House chamber rules. Donalds was filming for HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher in California on Friday, the same day his voting card was used to cast two votes on the House floor on a motion to recommit and passage of the Protecting American Energy Production Act.
Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-CO), who has been part of a bipartisan effort to change the House rules to allow for proxy voting for new parents, needled Donalds on social media, saying in a post, “I thought proxy voting wasn’t allowed.”
Speaking to reporters Tuesday morning, Donalds did not deny that he voted by proxy and rebuked being questioned on the matter, saying “Are we really talking about that? With all the stuff we got going on?”
When pressed on proxy voting violating House ethics rules, Donalds deflected with a comment that former President Joe Biden was not “even around for four years.”
Still, Donalds said he would cooperate with any House Ethics Committee probe into the matter.
“Obviously, anything that comes out of Ethics, you cooperate,” Donalds said. “So whether it’s this or anything else, of course you do. But this is not even an issue.”
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) brought the matter to the House floor Tuesday, contending that Donalds’ voting proxy despite his public opposition to the policy is “the kind of hypocrisy that appears to be a specialty with my Republican colleagues.”
In 2023, Donalds supported a measure from House Republicans to “END proxy voting once and for all” in a post on social media, which McGovern referenced in his remarks on the House floor.
“So let’s just call this what it is. It’s voter fraud under the rules that the Republicans have put into place. Let’s not even get started about who used Donalds’ card to vote for him. They are fraudulently casting votes on the House floor, to make sure they win every time,” said McGovern. “Whether or not they have enough members here, but apparently the vote of fraud is okay, if they do it. This is unbelievable.”
Voting by proxy has been a subject of debate in the lower chamber for years. Then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) launched proxy voting in the House during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 to keep up House attendance despite social distancing and quarantine requirements for members who were sick or exposed to the novel virus.
Republicans opposed the measure as unconstitutional and then House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) sued to strike down the practice, contending members should have to show up for work like other Americans during the pandemic. In 2023, Republicans ended the practice when they won back control of the House.
However, bipartisan support has emerged for reimplementing the use of proxy voting for new parents or in the case of a medical condition related to pregnancy.
Pettersen and Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), Sara Jacobs (D-CA), and Mike Lawler (R-NY) introduced a resolution in January that would seek to make Congress “more accessible to women and young parents,” renewing a push that House GOP leadership declined to pursue in the last session of Congress.
Pettersen was the 14th member to give birth while serving in Congress. Luna, who was a new mother at the beginning of the 118th Congress, experienced several complications after giving birth to her son, who is frequently seen with his mother throughout the House hallways.
Luna previously announced in November that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) would not be supporting her push for parent proxy voting after the four lawmakers led 12 others in sending a letter to Johnson demanding the reforms.
Still, Luna has not abandoned her efforts to change the House rule, telling the Washington Examiner on Tuesday that “we have a special rule that’s being filed and we’re calling up the vote and we have the votes to pass it” in March.
When asked about Donalds’s alleged use of proxy voting, Luna joked that she was “marking him down as a lean yes on my vote by proxy.”
For his part, Donalds declined to weigh in on whether Johnson should reconsider the House ban on remote voting, telling the Washington Examiner that was a “question for the leadership.”
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Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) office declined to comment.
