CNN
—
Speaker Mike Johnson suffered an embarrassing defeat on the floor Tuesday as nine of his own GOP members tanked a procedural vote on a measure that many considered anti-family.
The measure was procedural but would have allowed party leaders to change House rules in order to block new parents in Congress from voting remotely.
Johnson was attempting to kill a push by fellow GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, which was inspired by her own difficulty traveling to Washington when she was recovering from birth and had a newborn. But Luna waged her own successful campaign to defeat Johnson’s effort.
The issue has been roiling the House GOP as multiple lawmakers privately accuse the speaker of being anti-family.
Johnson and Luna have battled for months over the Florida congresswoman’s push to allow proxy voting in Congress for parents of newborns – an effort that began after she gave birth last year and was unable to vote for weeks. But the institutionalist Republican speaker has fiercely rejected that push, forcing Luna to choose the more contentious approach of working with Democrats.
Johnson and his leadership team faced a rebellion within their own party as they scramble to kill Luna’s measure before it can come to the floor, where it is almost certain to succeed.
“We’re not going to let it come to the floor,” Johnson told reporters when asked about the discharge petition. The Louisiana Republican said he’s spoken “repeatedly” with Luna about the matter — including a meeting in his office earlier Tuesday morning — but they have been unable to find a path forward.
“The speaker’s job is to protect the institution,” Johnson said.
Johnson’s stance is drawing complaints from across his GOP conference, many of whom see his position as anti-family in a Congress that includes more and more young parents. The GOP speaker has argued that proxy voting is unconstitutional, though he personally took part in the practice while it was allowed under then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the Covid pandemic.
The subject of proxy voting dominated a contentious GOP conference meeting Tuesday morning, according to multiple Republican sources familiar with the discussions. In one tense moment, GOP Rep. Nick LaLota – a father of three – spoke up to note that Republicans were using the rules to change the rules, according to two attendees.
Leaving the meeting, Johnson affirmed he would press ahead with his plan to block Luna’s bill by tucking language inside a separate rule vote. But other GOP leaders refused to even discuss it.
“We don’t whip rules and I don’t talk about rules, all right?” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer told CNN as he left the meeting.
Luna has told colleagues that she has at least four Republicans who would vote against the rule, according to a person familiar with her whip operation. But it’s not yet clear how many Republicans are willing to buck Johnson on the floor.
Luna has recently faced her own political drama over the matter. She left the Freedom Caucus this week after the ultraconservative group mostly refused to support her discharge petition.
There’s another reason that some Republicans privately want Johnson to allow proxy voting: The House math.
Johnson’s margins are so tight that President Donald Trump abruptly decided to keep Rep. Elise Stefanik in the House instead of adding her to his Cabinet. And yet Johnson is rejecting a measure that would give him some flexibility for when lawmakers are unable to attend votes because they have newborns at home.
One GOP lawmaker, Rep. Kat Cammack, is pregnant and at least one other, Rep. Brandon Gil of Texas, is expecting a child soon with his spouse.
The issue of proxy voting is personal for some Republicans.
In a private conversation discussing the matter on Monday, GOP Rep. Wesley Hunt told Johnson that it was his “biggest regret in life” that he trekked to Washington 16 times while his son was gravely ill in the neonatal intensive care unit and his wife was in the ICU, according to a person familiar with the conversation.
Hunt plans to bring his son, now a toddler, to the floor later Tuesday to protest Johnson’s decision on the proxy voting issue. Hunt is one of a dozen House Republicans who signed onto Luna’s discharge petition.
While GOP leaders do not typically whip on procedural measures known as rule votes, Johnson and Rep. Chip Roy of Texas have been personally phoning Republican members to whip them against Luna’s proposal, according to a person familiar with the outreach.
If GOP leaders do nothing, Luna’s discharge petition would be forced to the floor this week.
CNN’s Manu Raju and Haley Talbot contrubuted to this report.
