Republican leaders are intensifying their efforts to kill a bipartisan effort that would allow congress members who are new parents, and pregnant people who are unable to travel safely or have a serious medical condition, to vote by proxy for up to 12 weeks.
Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican from Florida who co-sponsored the resolution, said this week that her colleagues have attempted to bribe and threaten her to remove support for the effort.
These attempts, Luna said, haven’t deterred her.
“I’m not going to be bought. I will tell you that I’ve now been reached out to multiple times, offering me positions on different committees, and I don’t want it because this is bigger than me,” Luna, who became the 12th lawmaker to give birth while serving in the House in 2023, told reporters on Thursday. “It’s about actually changing the institution for the better.”
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Representatives Luna, Colorado Democrat Brittany Pettersen, California Democrat Sara Jacobs, and Republican Mike Lawler of New York teamed up on the resolution, garnering the 218 signatures from House members necessary for a discharge petition. This petition permits them to schedule a vote on the resolution, even without the support of the chamber’s leadership. Meaning, they have enough bipartisan support to force a vote in Congress.
But some Republicans, including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, are waging a war on the resolution—reportedly threatening Luna and her supporters with electoral consequences if they don’t shutter the effort. And, according to reporting from Politico, even supporting the bill has led some representatives to receive threats that they won’t be helped with fundraising efforts or that their bills won’t make it to the congressional floor.
Johnson, who prides himself on being a leader for family values, has vocally opposed the resolution.
“I’m a father. I’m pro-family. The Republican Party is pro-family. We want to make it as easy as possible for young parents to be able to participate in the process,” Johnson told NPR about the push to change the rules for new parents. “But proxy voting, in my view, is unconstitutional.” The speaker said the resolution could be a “slippery slope” to other exemptions.
Luna told reporters that she is open to negotiating with Republican leadership—under certain circumstances. “If you’re going to negotiate, you’re not going to be honest with the negotiations, there is no negotiation,” she said, later adding, “I am not going to destroy democracy by allowing female members to vote when recovering from birth.”
This coordinated attack to deny new parents, and particularly new moms, in Congress the ability to vote remotely for a dozen weeks flies in the face of top Republicans’ voiced commitment to supporting the American family and the rights of mothers. When reached by NPR, Johnson’s office declined to comment on allegations by Luna and others.
