With the rule failing, leadership decided to cancel the remainder of votes this week as they struggle to find a way to kill the discharge petition without having another rule failure. 

“A handful of Republicans joined with all the Democrats to take down a rule,” the speaker told reporters after the rule failed. “That’s rarely done. It’s very unfortunate.”

“Let me just make this clear, that rule being brought down means that we can’t have any further action on the floor this week,” the speaker added.

The House is now at a standstill, as it cannot move forward with the legislation tied to the rule. Among those bills are the SAVE Act, a bill the GOP passed last year, and the No Rogue Rulings Act. Both pieces of legislation are key cornerstones of President Donald Trump’s agenda — particularly the No Rogue Rulings Act, as the administration battles numerous restraining orders on multiple executive actions.

Some Republicans outside the House walls and familiar with the dramatics scoffed at leadership’s decision to recess early.

“[Johnson’s] claim here is false,” former Rep. Justin Amash said on X. “GOP leaders chose to combine legislative items in one rule…they can still vote on each item separately. They just don’t want to because that would give [Luna] a victory.” 

“This is a very weird hill to die on,” former GOP staffer Brendan Buck added.

Other Republicans are blaming Luna for the standoff, as the GOP has frequently blasted discharge petitions as “tools of the minority.”

“The way Luna worked with Democrats to bypass the majority Trump and Johnson built, simply to prove a point, is eerily similar to the embarrassment McCarthy caused for the party when he worked against majority Republicans last Congress to get his unpopular CR passed,” a senior GOP source told the Washington Examiner. “She should probably do some soul-searching to see if this is really a party she wants to be a part of or if the GOP agenda is something she wants to see passed.”

Where GOP goes from here: Leadership is daring Republicans to vote against Trump

House leaders are now considering tying the rule change to kill Luna’s bill to the budget resolution, which is set for a vote next week, as a way to dare Republicans to vote against the reconciliation process and, therefore, delay implementing Trump’s legislative wishes. 

Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) told reporters that they will try to kill the proxy voting bill again, and a source familiar confirmed to the Washington Examiner that Republicans will seek to bring that language up when the Rules Committee meets to discuss the budget resolution next week.

“Members ultimately have to make some decisions about whether they want to delay the Trump agenda or not,” Scalise said.

Tying it to the budget resolution would be a significant risk for Johnson, as he wants a budget resolution by Easter and a bill passed by Memorial Day — a lofty goal, as Republicans in the Senate and House are still negotiating an agreement after the chambers passed competing plans.

The path forward for Johnson on proxy voting, specifically, remains complicated. The speaker has repeatedly stated he is against proxy voting because it is unconstitutional and would open a “Pandora’s box” of additional remote voting scenarios. 

But Republicans, with a razor-thin majority, can only afford to lose two GOP votes to pass a measure along party lines. Johnson is unlikely to get any help from Democrats as they all voted against Tuesday’s rule and the budget resolution the first time around.

If the speaker was favorable to including a rule change to allow new parents to vote by proxy within reconciliation (unlikely), he would lose significant support from hard-liners and Freedom Caucus members but could potentially gain favor with Democrats.

But leadership is reluctant to concede on the proxy voting issue at all, after Freedom Caucus members last week threatened to hold up floor proceedings if Johnson allowed Luna’s discharge petition to come to the floor. 

Tuesday marked the first time in the 119th Congress that a rule failed. Voting against the procedural hurdle, which dictates floor speeches and amendment processes, has often been weaponized by the Freedom Caucus and other hard-line conservatives to push back against leadership-backed legislation. 

But leadership and Freedom Caucus members have been unusually in sync this Congress over the budget resolution and now the battle against new parent proxy voting. 

Luna, who left the Freedom Caucus because of the “backroom deals” her former fellow caucus members waged against her, blasted Republicans on the House floor for not bringing the SAVE Act up sooner. 

The so-called election security legislation was passed under the House rules at the start of the year as one of nearly a dozen bills that could be fast-tracked without hearings or amendments, provided limited debate, and waived all the other chamber rules.

“For a while, we’ve had the majority and had the ability to bring legislation to the floor on election integrity and also to call out rogue judges, and yet they chose at this point and time to tie this discharge petition killer to this rule that would permanently paint me and the members supporting it” as anti-election integrity, Luna said.

FIRST HOUSE RULE VOTE UNDER JOHNSON’S NEW CONGRESS FAILS OVER PROXY VOTING GOP REVOLT

Luna noticed her intent to bring the bill up on Tuesday as “privileged” ahead of the rule vote, giving leadership two legislative days to bring it to the floor for a vote. But with votes being canceled, the new parent proxy voting bill must come to the floor by next Tuesday based on the current House schedule. 

At that point, Republicans can vote to table the bill or refer it to a committee. But given the Democratic and Republican levels of support, it would likely be adopted into the House rules.