During the House Republican Leadership's press briefing on Tuesday, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) discussed efforts to address proxy voting for new parents.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Second row.
00:01Speaker Johnson, as you know, some of your Republican colleagues have signed on to an
00:02effort to force a vote of allowing proxy voting for new parents.
00:03Republicans use this method during the pandemic.
00:04Why not have a carve-out targeted for new parents for a short period of time?
00:19So I addressed this in conference this morning.
00:22That's okay.
00:24You good?
00:25All right, we're good.
00:28All right, good.
00:30We addressed this in conference this morning.
00:33A handful of our colleagues have gotten behind the effort, and look, I'm a father.
00:40I'm pro-family.
00:41The Republican Party is pro-family.
00:43We want to make it as easy as possible for young parents to be able to participate in
00:48the process.
00:49But proxy voting, in my view, is unconstitutional.
00:51In fact, I feel so strongly about it, I helped present a brief to the United States Supreme
00:56Court just about two years ago when, or longer now, all my days run together, years run together,
01:01but when Nancy Pelosi invented proxy voting, okay, using COVID as the excuse for that,
01:08it took us down a trail that I thought violated the very document that organized us.
01:12I don't think it's constitutional.
01:13I think the founders intended that you have a presence of the members there in person,
01:23not just for quorum calls, but for votes itself.
01:25This is a deliberative body.
01:27You cannot deliberate with your colleagues if you're out somewhere else.
01:30Now, there are family circumstances that make it difficult for people to attend votes.
01:34I understand that.
01:35I've had them myself.
01:36Many of us have.
01:37The leader was almost assassinated.
01:40He was out for months and missed a lot of votes.
01:44But his constituents understood that, and we did, and we carried forward.
01:49Here's the problem.
01:50If you create a proxy vote opportunity just for young parents, mothers and the fathers
01:56in those situations, then where is the limiting principle?
02:00People have colleagues who feel equally convicted about this.
02:03Look, what if someone is ill, or what if their spouse is ill?
02:09What if their child contracts some sort of disease or cancer, heaven forbid, and they
02:14need prolonged treatment?
02:16Can they be out for that?
02:18There's no limiting principle that would stop that, I think, if we go down that road.
02:23And so I believe it's unconstitutional.
02:24I believe it violates more than two centuries of tradition in the institution, and I think
02:29that it opens a Pandora's box where ultimately maybe no one is here, and we're all voting
02:33remotely by AI or something.
02:34I don't know.
02:35I don't think that's what Congress is supposed to be.
02:37So I addressed it, you know, in the room with all the House Republicans this morning.
02:41I take – I'm not angry at anybody for doing this.
02:45I understand.
02:46The motives are pure.
02:47Anna Paulina Luna has brought it forward.
02:48She has pure motives, and I talked with her about it last night.
02:51But I just can't – as the leader of this institution and the one who's supposed to
02:54protect it, I don't feel like I can get on board with that, and I think I have an
02:59opportunity to speak out about it.