Downfalls of the House proxy voting compromise – Washington Examiner
The article discusses a recent conflict in congress regarding proxy voting, especially between House Speaker Mike Johnson and Representative Anna Paulina Luna. The dispute arose over a resolution that would allow members of Congress to designate a proxy to vote on thier behalf for 12 weeks after childbirth or due to a medical pregnancy-related condition. Luna’s efforts to formalize proxy voting faced significant criticism, especially from Johnson, who deemed the proposal unconstitutional.however, a compromise was ultimately reached through a method called “vote pairing.”
While this compromise was viewed as a win for Luna, it fell short of formalizing her vision for proxy voting. The article critiques this arrangement, suggesting that it reflects a growing trend of societal issues lacking clear definitions, particularly regarding motherhood and family life. Advocates like Luna prioritize their legislative duties over traditional family values, which the article argues erodes the recognition and importance of motherhood as a sacrificial role. It cautions against a political culture that favors inclusion to the point of abandoning fundamental societal structures, warning of a slippery slope that may arise from such accommodations. The piece ultimately reflects concern over how this dynamic may negatively effect both policy and the sanctity of family roles.
Downfalls of the House proxy voting compromise
Public battling between House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) over proxy voting in Congress has come to an end, but its implications are only beginning to emerge. The question that animates them: What does it mean to “represent” another?
For Luna and others, especially bill co-sponsors Reps. Brittany Pettersen (D-CO), Sara Jacobs (D-CA), and Mike Lawler (R-NY), the answer involves making Congress malleable to individual circumstances. The four authored the Proxy Voting for New Parents Resolution, by which members receive the authority to designate a proxy to vote on their behalf for 12 weeks after childbirth. It would also apply to “a medical condition related to pregnancy.” The bill received pushback, especially from Johnson, on the grounds that its proposal was unconstitutional. After a back-and-forth culminating in a House standstill last week, Luna reached a compromise with Johnson through “vote pairing.”
In many ways, Luna won. The compromise rejects her resolve to turn proxy voting into a concrete procedural statute, but vote pairing is, essentially, the constitutionally acceptable version of proxy voting. A certain spirit of accommodation has brought society to a point where its major institutions, such as marriage, parenthood, and even biology, lack real legal or cultural definitions. Conceptual victory such as this one has many of the same perpetuating effects.
No one wants the choice of staying with a newborn or voting in Congress to be an “impossible decision.” And, in fact, it’s not. As we validate such dissonance with real consideration, the more that dissonance prevails. But even if we treat Pettersen and Luna’s argument seriously, it is a bad one. They base it on the idea that their primary purpose, even in the role of mother, is their representation of constituents.
When Rep. Jacobs says, “I want to be able to represent my community, and I want to be able to have a family, and it shouldn’t be so hard to figure out how to do both,” she’s correct. It shouldn’t be so difficult. But her priority necessarily lies in voting. Representing motherhood is not enough for her.
The idea reduces the clear value of family life. One manifestation is the leagues of women such as Pettersen and Luna, whom we see cosplaying as single mothers who actually have to juggle work and motherhood. This is not representation as much as it is misguidance. Moreover, it is a huge setback for policy initiatives that would reduce parental strain.
Here, we have a framework that is anti-family but also anti-motherhood. The crux of motherhood is that it is a sacrifice, bodily and timewise. Advocates like Luna want to gain this sacrificial recognition for mothers and then be compensated for it. Society, deeply irreligious, then looks down on that sacrifice as something hardly worth pursuing in the first place.
The cycle continues such that mothers like Pettersen are goaded into believing that “it is unfathomable that in 2025, we have not modernized Congress to address these very unique challenges.” She cannot escape the cycle because chooses to inspire it, and the motivations become clear. Proxy voting, or vote pairing, as it were, is merely an accommodations ploy.
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The compromise could be used by the Left in the slippery slope danger that some opponents flag. Perhaps, yet current politics are enough of a direct line. The root of what Pettersen and Luna are unwilling to give up is inclusion. Support equals inclusion, and that equation is what constitutes representation.
But it is not the mark of a civilized society to accommodate an endless progression of lifestyles to the degree that each is eminently comfortable. That would give us zero definition and complete entitlement, which, as it happens, is where we are presently.
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