Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., looks on during a hearing at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday. Luna has been leading a push in the House to allow proxy voting for new parents.
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Two moms brought business on the floor of the House of Representatives to a grinding halt on Tuesday over their push to allow remote voting for new parents.
“We said don’t f*** with moms,” Rep. Brittany Pettersen, D-Colo., said on the steps of the U.S. Capitol alongside Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla.
“We worked as a team,” Luna said. “And I think that today is a pretty historical day for the entire conference and showing that the body has decided that parents deserve a voice in Washington and also to the importance of female members having a vote in Washington, D.C.”
Luna and Pettersen have been working to pass legislation that would allow new parents to vote by proxy for 12 weeks around the birth of a new child. Luna tried several different tactics to get the bipartisan bill to the floor. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., originally refused to put the bill on the floor. So Luna teamed up with Democrats to bypass the speaker and force a vote.
When it became clear they had the 218 votes needed to do that, Johnson still tried to stop them. He took the unusual step of designing a special rule to prevent a vote, but nine Republicans voted alongside Democrats to block it.
