GOP Congresswoman dings her party for ending proxy voting: 'Get with the times'

Former Rep. Kevin McCarthy banned proxy voting in January 2023 when he became speaker of the House.

• A GOP representative said House rules need to allow for proxy voting, at least for pregnant members.
• Rep. Anna Paulina Luna chastised her party's decision to disallow the practice altogether.
• Former Rep. Kevin McCarthy banned proxy voting in January 2023 when he became speaker of the House.

A freshman GOP representative pushed back against her party on Wednesday morning for banning House members from voting via proxy.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who represents Florida's 13th Congressional District, gave birth to her first child in August 2023 but was unable to cast votes in the House until she had recuperated.

"The House of Representatives needs to get with the times ref women in office," Luna posted on X. "I was told when I was recovering from birth that I could not vote. I physically could not travel and had a brutal recovery. When the rules were written, women were not in Congress. I'm going to change this."

In a now-deleted follow-up post, the congresswoman said the current restrictions mean that "giving birth forces women in Congress to choose between families and their carriers," and pointed to the fact that proxy voting was repeatedly used during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Luna's office did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Despite proxy voting's usefulness during a national health crisis, when he became speaker of the House in early 2023, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed to a modified House rules package that ended the practice altogether.

McCarthy, who never once voted by proxy during his more than twenty years in Congress, tried to forbid the practice altogether when he sued then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the sergeant-at-arms, and House clerk in 2020. His lawsuit failed.

Luna's not the first member of the House to become temporarily unable to vote due to health reasons since McCarthy instituted the rule change: Fellow Florida Rep. Greg Steube was sidelined for several weeks after he fell off a ladder in January 2023.

And House Majority Leader Steve Scalise is out of office until February receiving stem cell transplants to treat his blood cancer.

With his temporary leave — and after Rep. Bill Johnson resigns later in the month to take a job as president of Youngstown State University — the GOP will hold the smallest majority possible in the House with just 218 available members as the chamber attempts to avoid a government shutdown.