There are some members of Congress who are tired of being told they can’t vote by proxy when they’re very pregnant or have recently given birth. Some of them are Republicans, and they’re fighting back against Mike Johnson’s anti-proxy-voting stance.
GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna repeatedly tried to convince Speaker Mike Johnson that he — as a pro-family champion — should back her push to allow new mothers to vote remotely for six weeks while they are recovering from birth.
Well, there’s her problem; assuming that because Speaker Johnson is “pro-family”, he will be “pro-mother”. Every Good Republican knows that women belong barefoot in the kitchen, with a child on her hip and another one crying on the floor. Just ask famous parenting expert and Vice President-Elect J.D. Vance.
This is a test of the theory that Trump is an idiot.
If he’s smart, he’ll endorse the proxy vote, at least for mothers. Demonstrate Johnson’s subservience. Check. Demonstrate occasional policy moderation. Check. Give the appearance of being above the constitution on an issue where SCOTUS would back him up. Check.
Trump certainly looks to his own enrichment first, and avoids anything requiring investment or forethought, but his singular area of enthusiasm is in wrecking vengeance upon anyone he thinks has wronged him, which at last count is approximately half of voters who didn’t vote for him, any woman who has declined his advances or flashed him a dirty look, and every single journalist who has failed to celebrate him with praise and adoration, plus all of the ‘losers’ in the military, civil servants, epidemiologists, lawyers, bankers, celebrities, Tik-Tokers, and schoolchildren who aren’t actively working to make him more wealthy. When it comes to expressing his pent-up resentment and getting retribution for casual slights, Trump is a true (if inept) industrialist. It is his only other true passion in life aside from sticking his name in big gold letters on every flat surface he can find and cheating at golf.
It’s not unconstitutional but it is a violation of parliamentary practice. The idea is that you should only vote if you have heard the deliberations (debate). On the other hand, given the new normal there should be no reason that they cannot participate remotely.
Of course, in reality, the “deliberations (debate),” in practice, are not the arguments presented on the Congressional floor; those are just theater for the rubes. The real deliberations are the positions expressed to the lawmakers, in private behind closed doors, by the army of lobbyists that instruct them how to vote and why. And that doesn’t require any kind of physical presence in Congress to accomplish.
Nobody will blink. Luna has Trump’s ear but he’s not going to alienate Johnson over what (to him) amounts to a minor procedural issue and helps rather than hinders his policy goals.