Trump backs Luna push for House parental proxy voting
President Trump said Thursday he supports the effort to allow for proxy voting for new parents in Congress, while the standoff between House GOP leadership and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) hardens over the issue.
“I don’t know why it’s controversial,” Trump said.
"I’m gonna let the Speaker make the decision, but I like the idea of being able to — if you're having a baby, I think you should be able to call in and vote. I'm in favor of that,” Trump added.
He also told reporters, while flying to Miami on Air Force One, that he spoke with Luna on Wednesday.
“I spoke to Anna yesterday. She and some people feel strongly about it, and I would agree with them,” he said.
Luna told NewsNation on Wednesday night that she had talked to Trump about the matter.
“The president assured that this would get resolved,” Luna said.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has been scrambling to break an impasse over the push for proxy voting, after Luna joined with more than 200 Democrats and nine Republicans to use a procedure known as a discharge petition to circumvent leadership and force a vote on the matter.
Luna executed the discharge petition to force a vote on Rep. Brittany Pettersen’s (D-Colo.) resolution, which would allow members who give birth or lawmakers whose spouses give birth to have another member vote for them for 12 weeks.
Johnson and GOP leaders, who argue that proxy voting is unconstitutional and extending it to new parents could be a slippery slope, attempted to shut down that move — and any future moves to bring up similar proposals — in a procedural vote earlier this week.
As a result, the House floor is at a standstill. The move also blocked action on pro-Trump priorities on limiting the power of federal judges and requiring proof of citizenship to vote. In response, leadership canceled votes for the rest of the week.
The White House had been mum on whether the president backs Luna or Johnson on the issue after press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday that she didn’t know Trump's stance on proxy voting.
Johnson’s stance has been that allowing members to vote by proxy is unconstitutional. He told reporters recently, “I took an oath to uphold the Constitution.”
He said Wednesday that he was looking at other ways to support new moms in the Capitol.