A new Republican mother wants to change the House rules for voting after giving birth

When she arrived in Congress last year, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a far-right Republican from Florida, joined the rest of her party in staunchly opposing proxy voting, a practice that Democrats in the House of Representatives have condemned. passed to allow remote legislation during the pandemic.

When she gave birth to her first child in August, her perspective changed. Now Ms. Luna is pushing to allow new mothers in Congress to stay away from Washington immediately after giving birth and appoint a colleague to cast votes on their behalf in the House of Representatives.

Given Republicans' strong opposition to proxy voting, there is a good chance that the bill Ms. Luna plans to introduce on Tuesday to implement the change will receive even a minimum vote. But it raises a new issue for a male-dominated institution where the average age is almost 58 – a place that is largely exempt from workplace legislation and still lags behind in bringing some of its arcane practices with modern expectations.

Ms. Luna, 34, is only the 12th member of Congress to have a child while in office. Despite her intention to order what she called an all-natural “granola” delivery and quickly return to her duties on Capitol Hill, things did not go according to plan. She suffered from pre-eclampsia and had to have labor induced, after which she had a difficult labor and subsequently developed mastitis. Pumped full of blood pressure medications and antibiotics, her doctor did not allow her to travel.

Her plans for an immediate return to Washington were thwarted and Ms. Luna was placed under house arrest in St. Petersburg as the House of Representatives received crucial votes on an emergency plan to prevent a government shutdown, which she fiercely opposed. She wasn't there yet when the House of Representatives took the historic vote to impeach Speaker Kevin McCarthy. (She wouldn't say how she would have felt about that, calling it “ancient history.”)

Still saddened by what she perceived as the unfairness of it all, Ms. Luna was inspired to draft the bill she is introducing this week. It would essentially give new mothers in Congress six weeks of maternity leave to vote, with an exception to House rules that allow them to vote by proxy during that period.

“You plan one thing and it changes completely,” Ms. Luna said of her expectations about having a child in a recent interview from her office on Capitol Hill, as her 4-month-old son, Henry, lay in a rocking chair watching her. nap. desk. (Ms. Luna says she has no childcare and brings Henry to the Capitol almost every day she is in Washington, leaving him on her desk during most of her meetings.)

“You are forced to choose between your career and having a family,” she said. “We are far too much in an age of technology to be at all acceptable. What happens if I have to vote on war?”

Her beak is extremely narrow. An exception would only be made for women who have physically given birth, not for members who adopt a child or have a surrogate mother, or for new fathers.

In the interview, she sidestepped a question about why postpartum mothers should be given a reprieve from in-person voting in the House of Representatives if members are dealing with medical conditions that prevent them from traveling, or husbands helping their wives recover from difficult births like the one she experienced. , Do not.

“I'm not going to address that problem,” she said. “Proxy voting must be treated respectfully and subtly. Republicans could have a one-seat majority and we have a member who is pregnant.”

Because there are relatively few women of childbearing age in Congress, the idea of ​​maternity leave for members has rarely been discussed. But Ms Luna says she is now even considering introducing legislation to introduce a constitutional amendment to address the issue.

She noted that congressional staffers were given maternity leave, but there is “nothing” for lawmakers themselves.

It's all a change for a hardline member of the party who spoke out against proxy voting when then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi instituted it as a coronavirus protection measure. Republicans even went to the Supreme Court in a failed attempt to put an end to it.

When Republicans took control of the House last year and adopted new rules, they ended the practice.

In their federal lawsuit, Republican leaders argued that proxy voting was unconstitutional, but Ms. Luna claims she found a way around that objection. The Constitution requires that a quorum be present for each chamber of Congress to conduct business. Her legislation did not allow proxy voting for the quorum call, allowing remote voting only on legislation that came up afterwards.

Her bill is backed by an unlikely bipartisan group of 20 lawmakers, including Reps. Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, and Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan and chair of the Congressional Mamas' Caucus.

At this point it would have little immediate practical effect. There is currently only one member of Congress who has announced that she is pregnant: Jenniffer González-Colón, Puerto Rico's Republican commissioner, one of six members of the House of Representatives who do not have the right to vote on legislation. But Ms Luna said she hoped this would apply to more members in the future.

With the slim Republican majority shrinking to just a two-vote lead, Ms. Luna may not be the only Republican who wishes the party had allowed more leeway in the past when it came to remote voting. Pensions, an eviction and absences due to illness mean that the House Republican Party now faces the very real possibility that it will be outnumbered by Democrats on every legislative workday.

Ms. Luna is also not the only member trying to make some changes around voting in the House of Representatives to make life easier for lawmakers dealing with physical hardships. In June, Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, and a group of Democrats offered a proposal change of house rules which would allow members to vote by proxy if they or their family members had serious medical conditions, including a pregnancy-related condition. Mr. Raskin recently underwent chemotherapy for lymphoma and announced in April that his cancer was in remission. The proposal went nowhere.

Ms. Luna said she had spoken to Speaker Mike Johnson about her legislation but had received no indication that he would support it, and a spokesman for Mr. Johnson declined to comment.

However, Republican leaders have generally resisted opening the door to proxy voting, fearing that one exception will become a slippery slope to more, and because of the negative effect they believe it will have on “collegiality.” ' of the members.

If she doesn't get the green light, Ms. Luna said she would try to force a vote on her bill by initiating a discharge petition, which would allow legislation to bypass normal channels and get the floor if 218 lawmakers sign on in support of the bill . It.

Ms Luna said both parties would be hypocritical if they did not support her legislation.

“You have Republicans who stand up for the family and motherhood,” she said. “And you have Democrats who stand up for women's rights.”

Ms. Luna is a proud MAGA warrior and combative ally of former President Donald J. Trump, but motherhood seems to bring out a slightly more bipartisan perspective, at least when it comes to babies. She said Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader who constantly rails against lawmakers like Ms. Luna, whom he calls “MAGA extremists,” sent her flowers after her son's birth.

“Many members across the board love Henry,” she added.

Ms. Luna said she planned to give every prospective pregnant member — Democrat or Republican — compression socks, which she said saved her feet during long days walking around the Capitol complex.

And Ms. Luna is advocating for women in Congress to have more babies and bring them to Washington.

“Let's get more members bringing their families,” she said. “It would make this place so much more enjoyable to have children here.”