Republicans and Democrats team up to defy House leadership on voting for new parents

The House voted on Tuesday to stop Republican leaders from blocking an impending vote on proxy voting for new parents.

The vote failed 206-222, with nine Republicans siding with a unanimous Democratic caucus to form an unusual bipartisan coalition — throwing the House in a temporary paralysis with the surprise development.

The joint rule they voted on would have blocked Rep. Anna Paulina Luna's bipartisan discharge petition to allow proxy voting for new lawmaker parents up to 12 weeks after giving birth.

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Republican Reps. Luna, Kevin Kiley, Tim Burchett, Jeff Van Drew, Greg Steube, Mike Lawler, Ryan Mackenzie, Nick LaLota and Max Miller all voted to defy Speaker Mike Johnson, who has argued the effort is unconstitutional.

House Republican leaders — including Johnson — had said they would take the unprecedented step to block Luna's petition — the latest move in a weekslong internal House GOP clash.

After the vote, House GOP leaders canceled votes for the rest of the week.

“No further votes are expected in the House this week. Next votes are expected at approximately 6:30 p.m. on Monday, April 7th. This is a change from the previously announced schedule,” the notice from leadership stated.

“It's disappointing. A handful of Republicans joined with all the Democrats to take down a rule that's rarely done. It's very unfortunate,” Johnson said after the vote.

Johnson said because the rule vote failed, “we can't have any further action on the floor this week.”

Luna's legislation seeks to allow new mothers and fathers in the House to vote on legislation remotely. Luna had a child in 2023 as she was serving in Congress.

Democratic Reps. Brittany Pettersen and Sara Jacobs introduced the effort with Luna and Republican Rep. Lawler in January.

“I am doing this because I believe this governing body needs to change for the better and young American parents need to be heard in the halls of Congress,” Luna said last week.

Pettersen spoke in favor of Luna's resolution on the House floor Tuesday as she held her 9-week-old son, Sam.

As Sam cooed, squealed, squeaked and cried in his mother's arms, Pettersen — with a burp cloth slung over her shoulder — pleaded for bipartisan cooperation to “modernize Congress” and address life events for lawmakers.

“No mom or dad should be in the position that I was in and so many parents have found themselves in. It is anti-woman, it's anti-family and we need to come together,” she said on the House floor.

Pettersen is only the 13th member of the House to have given birth while serving in Congress — and returning to Washington after her son was born prematurely meant she “faced an impossible decision.”

“We have a long ways to go to make this place accessible for young families like mine,” Pettersen said. “For all of the parents here, we know that when we have newborns, it's when they're the most vulnerable in their life. It's when they need 24-7 care.”

Luna received 218 signatures on her resolution — enough needed to force the House to vote on the measure. Lawmakers use discharge petitions to circumvent leadership, who determine what legislation comes to the floor.

Johnson and Luna have been at odds over proxy voting for new parents.

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Johnson has argued that proxy voting is the start of a slippery slope that could lead to more and more members voting remotely. Proxy voting was used during the COVID-19 pandemic, which many Republicans were against.

“I believe it's unconstitutional. I believe it violates more than two centuries of tradition in the institution, and I think that it opens a Pandora's box where, ultimately, maybe no one is here, and we're all voting remotely by AI or something. I don't know. I don't think that's what Congress is supposed to be,” Johnson said at a news conference last week.

Despite some Republican support for the bill, Johnson said “as the leader of this institution and the one who's supposed to protect it, I don't feel like I can get on board with that.”

“This is a deliberative body. You cannot deliberate with your colleagues if you're out somewhere else. Now, there are family circumstances that make it difficult for people to attend votes. I understand that. I've had them myself,” he said.

The vote came a day after Luna resigned from the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus over her legislation, according to a letter obtained by ABC News.

“With a heavy heart, I am resigning from the Freedom Caucus. 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,” she wrote in the letter.

ABC News' Lalee Ibssa and Sarah Beth Hensley contributed to this report.

Republicans and Democrats team up to defy House leadership on voting for new parents originally appeared on abcnews.go.com