Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Wednesday stated he’s “working on every possible accommodation” to make it simpler for moms to serve in Congress amid the deadlock between GOP management and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) over parental proxy voting.
“Proxy voting aside, I am actively working on every possible accommodation to make Congressional service simpler for young mothers,” Johnson wrote on the social platform X. “As the pro-family party, our aim as Republicans is to support those principles while also defending our constitutional traditions.”
Requested by The Hill about what changes he’s eyeing, Johnson cited a room for nursing moms and probably permitting moms of younger youngsters to make use of their official funds to journey between their house districts and Washington.
“We’ve got a lot of ideas on the table,” he stated. “We need a room for nursing mothers if they need that, that’ll be right off the House floor. We have a family room but there may be ways to improve access and make it even easier. We’re looking at the travel policies, potentially the use of [member representative allowance] to allow travel for mothers with young children to be able to transport them back and forth so they get more time with them.”
“We want to accommodate mothers who want to serve in Congress, and we’re the pro-family party so we’ll do that,” he added. “But we can’t do something that violates the Constitution or destroys the institution we serve in, and that’s what I’m afraid of. The proxy-vote gambit opens us a Pandora’s box and it’s one that I’m not gonna be involved in opening.”
The announcement from Johnson got here sooner or later after Luna and eight different Republicans banded with Democrats to tank a procedural vote in protest of management’s try to bury the parental proxy voting push, bringing key legislative enterprise to a standstill on the ground.
Luna efficiently executed a discharge petition to drive a vote on Rep. Brittany Pettersen’s (D-Colo.) decision that might enable lawmakers who give beginning or lawmakers whose spouses give beginning to have one other member vote for them for 12 weeks. Johnson and his management crew, nevertheless, have been against the hassle, arguing that proxy voting is unconstitutional and warning that permitting it for brand new mother and father would result in an growth of the apply sooner or later.
The Home Guidelines Committee, consequently, superior a rule Tuesday that included language that might primarily “turn off” privilege, blocking Luna and her allies from forcing motion on the proxy voting laws, or any related laws sooner or later — which Luna and her allies voted down.
Johnson’s information that he’s eyeing lodging for brand new moms may very well be a possible option to break the deadlock, or assist soften Luna’s stance.
The Florida Republican has not commented on Johnson’s announcement.
