After House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., settled a weekslong deadlock with Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., about remote voting for new parents in Congress, House Republicans are poised to move two major measures supported by President Donald Trump this week.
The House is set to vote this week on the No Rogue Rulings Act (NORRA) by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., which would restrict district court judges’ power to issue orders barring Trump policies across the country; and the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, which calls for proof of citizenship in the voter registration process.
Both were anticipated to vote last week, but a dispute over House procedure that stopped business-as-usual to a standstill upended their intentions.
Speaker Johnson and I have agreed to reinstate a technique known as live/dead pairing dating back to the 1800s. When unable to vote—e.g., new parents, widowed, exigencies, etc.—the whole conference will be able to use it.
[Trump] and his advice helped this to become the most contemporary, pro-family Congress we have ever seen; all of those who toiled to bring about this transformation also helped.
Johnson’s staff told HeadlinesForever Digital that the speaker said an agreement had been struck with Luna on a Republican lawmaker-only call Sunday afternoon.
The solution they reached calls on an old legislative custom that effectively “pairs” an absent new mother’s vote with a vote by someone on the opposing side of the issue, thereby cancelling her vote. Though neither vote would count, their positions on the matter would be recorded in the Congressional Record.
Johnson’s office stated they also came to a deal on increasing Capitol access for young moms as well.
Last Tuesday afternoon, a tiny handful of GOP legislators overturned their leaders’ attempt to kill a Luna measure that would have let new parents to vote by proxy for 12 weeks around their child’s birth, leaving the House floor immobilized.
A discharge petition, a tool letting legislators push proposals into House consideration if they can obtain signatures from a majority of the chamber, was being prepared by Luna to mandate a vote on her bill.
Johnson, who thinks proxy voting is illegal, added wording to an unrelated Tuesday afternoon vote to reject discharge applications.
Should it succeed, it would have permitted deliberation and probably passage of the NORRA Act and SAVE Act last week.
On a usually quiet procedural vote, House GOP leaders suffered an embarrassing setback instead.
The impasse occurs as the House is also attempting to come to terms with the Senate’s reconciliation plan, which will let Republicans start working on policy and monetary changes included in a large measure pushing Trump’s agenda on defense, energy, the border, and taxes.
Planned Republican leaders seem ready to push forward with that bill despite fiscal conservatives’ worries about differences between the Senate and House on the matter.