Reporter's Notebook: Should the House allow members of Congress to vote remotely?

Woody Allen famously decreed that 90% of success in life is just showing up. 

With that in mind, should the House of Representatives allow members of Congress to vote from home?

How about with very particular criteria?

Oh, you may say, didn’t they try that a few years ago during the pandemic? Lawmakers would literally phone in their votes to a proxy member on the floor. That member in Washington, D.C., would then rifle through a set of index cards, announcing how a member was either in favor or opposed to a given bill, amendment, resolution or motion. 

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That constituted voting in the House during the darkest days of the pandemic. 

Social distancing spurred proxy voting in the House. It was probably not the best idea to squeeze 435 people into the House at the same time when COVID-19 raged in 2020. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., and former Rep. Ben McAdams, D-Utah, tested positive in mid-March, 2020. McAdams was hospitalized for more than a week after experiencing shortness of breath. 

It took a while, but the House eventually adopted remote voting. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., initially had reservations about the practice, but as the pandemic intensified, proponents argued that flying scores of lawmakers from all around the country into Washington and back to their districts wasn’t feasible or maybe safe.

So the House implemented proxy voting.

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"People have to choose between their health and their vote. That shouldn't be the case," Pelosi said in 2020. "We should always be removing obstacles of participation to vote."

Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., represents a district just across the Potomic River in Northern Virginia. That means Beyer was always near Capitol Hill. Beyer served as one of the most reliable surrogates for colleagues to cast votes through him on the floor and would frequently come to the floor toward the end of the roll call vote and read off a flurry of names.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., decried the practice.

"For more than 231 years, never have we seen a proxy on the floor of the House," said McCarthy.

Democrats pointed to health and safety. Many Republicans in turn pointed to the Constitution. Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution, which says that "a Majority of each (chamber) shall constitute a Quorum to do business."

The GOP asserted that anything the House was doing – under proxy voting and Democratic control – was unconstitutional. Members had to be there in person. Yet many Republicans eventually began engaging in the practice – even while some spoke out against remote voting.

Fast-forward to the present.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., gave birth to a son during the summer of 2023. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, D-Colo., gave birth to a son in January. Pettersen was just the 13th woman ever to give birth while in office.

But, becoming a new mom doesn’t always comport with the intense schedule mandated for Members of Congress. Traveling to and from Washington, D.C., lawmakers are routinely expected to be in three places at once: meeting with constituents, voting on the floor and perhaps attending a committee hearing. You get the idea. 

Then there are actual health concerns for new moms. Doctors put some pregnant moms on bedrest. 

"Congress needs to be more accessible to regular people," said Pettersen. "I wasn't actually able to fly from Colorado to DC to vote a few weeks before giving birth because of the medical restrictions."

Luna had a similar experience.

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"I was trying to figure out what the process was for Members who are about to give birth. And to my disappointment, I was surprised. I was told that I could not vote," said Luna. "This place is completely out of touch with average day Americans."

So, Luna teamed with Pettersen to draft a resolution allowing expectant mothers, those who have just given birth and even spouses of new mothers, a three-month window under which to vote remotely.

"It is the first step forward in the right direction to not just give mothers a seat at the table, but also to encourage people to have families," said Luna. "It's pretty much hard to get anywhere after eight months."

There’s a cumbersome parliamentary maneuver that disgruntled House Members can use to try an end-run around leadership if the speaker isn’t keen to put their pet issue on the floor. It’s called a "discharge petition." A discharge petition requires a solid 218 signatures – regardless of the body’s membership at that moment – to force the House to consider your issue. 

Discharge petitions are rarely successful. 

In 2002, the House successfully adopted a discharge petition for the landmark "McCain-Feingold" campaign finance law. 

Another discharge petition wasn’t successful until there was a bipartisan plan to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank in 2015. 

But discharge petitions got a boost recently. The House adopted two last year alone. One was a package on natural disaster tax relief. Members also advanced a discharge petition to curb the reduction of Social Security payments to senior citizens. But over the past quarter-century, only four discharge petitions collected the requisite signatures to compel House action.

The remote voting discharge petition by Luna and Pettersen collected enough signatures last week. That will trigger the House to consider the plan on proxy voting for moms and parents – unless House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., can convince the sponsors to dial things back. 

Johnson opposes remote voting.

"I'm afraid the whole thing is unconstitutional. "So I've tried to discuss this with Anna, and she's pretty stubborn about it," said Johnson. 

Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., is the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee. He argued that the GOP backlash to proxy voting "was insane" during the pandemic, but then McGovern called out Johnson.

"Speaker Johnson voted remotely 39 times," said McGovern. 

Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said he opposes proxy voting because of the potential for members to take advantage of the option.

"Members abused the practice during COVID. They used to go to fundraisers. They used to go on vacation," said Burchett. "But you can't fake a pregnancy."

What Luna and Pettersen actually constructed was a discharge petition for a "rule." A "rule" is the parliamentary mechanism for the House to put a bill or resolution on the floor. The remote voting plan would pry loose a "rule" allowing the House to consider the Luna/Pettersen resolution.

Any member who signed onto the discharge petition can try to call it up as early as March 27. The House GOP brass can delay putting it on the floor until March 31 or April 1. That’s when the House would actually vote to discharge the "rule" on proxy voting. 

If the House voted to put the "rule" for remote voting on the floor, then it can actually debate and vote on the proposed change itself. But the House GOP leadership could also delay this step by a couple of days, perhaps until April 7 or 8. 

Fox is told that Johnson could prepare a special rule from the Rules Committee to potentially impede the Luna/Pettersen plan. Under House rules, this plan could make the proxy voting plan only available on the second or fourth Monday of the month, but this approach is unwieldy at best.

The House is scheduled to be out of session on the second Monday of the month, April 14, but it does meet on Monday, April 28. So, it’s possible this could string out the plan until then. 

Fox is also told that the House Republican leaders may want to rip the Band-Aid off right away. That could prompt immediate action on the plan when the House returns next week.

Keep in mind that signing the discharge petition only makes it available to come to the floor. The cohort of 218 members who signed the discharge petition are not bound to vote in favor of any of the procedural steps just outlined. They are also not required to vote for the actual change, allowing for remote voting.

That’s why there could be lots of arm-twisting behind the scenes by members who don’t want the House to adopt this plan. 

Regardless, when the House does consider any of these machinations, members will have to vote in person in the chamber. At least for now. 

Ninety percent of success in life is just showing up. But new parents who double as House Members might argue that success on the home front supersedes that.