The House voted under a cloud of doubt Wednesday, using Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s new rules that for the first time in the chamber’s 231-year history allowed lawmakers to vote by proxy and ignored Republicans’ objections that it rendered the tally unconstitutional.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy labeled Mrs. Pelosi’s new designated-voter rules an unconstitutional power grab that marred any measure moving through the chamber, as Congress took new action involving the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act bill.
Mrs. Pelosi pushed the proxy voting rules through the House this month to allow lawmakers to designate a colleague to vote for them in the event of their absence. In response, Mr. McCarthy told reporters Wednesday that Republicans would proceed as if they were “playing a baseball game under protest.”
“At the end of the game, we’ll figure out who’s right,” the California Republican said. “What’s really going to happen here, whatever the Democrats move forward probably will never become, upheld to be law. It’s a question whether the Senate will take it up if you listen to [Senate Majority] Leader [Mitch] McConnell.”
House Republicans had turned to a court in Washington for assistance stopping Mrs. Pelosi but did not receive any remedy before the votes started. Republicans filed a complaint arguing that the proxy-voting plan violates the Constitution’s direction that lawmakers be “actually present,” according to the lawsuit, to form a quorum or have their votes recorded as yes or no.
The House’s votes involving the FISA legislation were delayed slightly after Republicans publicly voiced their opposition, but they failed to stop it. More than 70 Democrats voted by proxy, while no Republicans did.
Rep. Jim McGovern, Massachusetts Democrat, said Republicans who say proxy voting is unconstitutional are peddling a falsehood. Mr. McGovern, chairman of the House Rules Committee, chastised Republicans for not paying close attention to the House’s new rules, which he said were “constitutional” and “temporary.”
“Nobody is turning over their solemn power to anybody,” Mr. McGovern said on the House floor through a face mask. “Members have to participate directly just like they would on the House floor, they have to pay attention to the proceedings, they cannot give their votes in advance. On a previous question, people have to respond just like they would in real time when they were here on the floor.”
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Wednesday that he did not think his constituents cared about the mechanism he used to vote and he accused Republicans of caring about “form over substance.”
“Not a single one of my constituents, not one, voted for me so I would vote in this machine,” the Maryland Democrat said on the House floor while pointing at the machine used to cast a vote. “Not one. What they wanted me to do is vote to represent them and they really didn’t care how I did that as long as it was accurate.”
The House’s minority strongly disagreed. Republican Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana told reporters that lawmakers should have shown up for work just as other Americans are returning to work nationwide.
“We shouldn’t be the last to reopen and show up and do our job, we should be the first,” Mr. Scalise said. “And we’ve been able to have votes on the House floor successfully and safely. In the last few weeks, we’ve had votes with over 380 members here, present, and voting before Speaker Pelosi put in this unconstitutional proxy voting scheme.”
Mr. McCarthy said Democrats who have taken advantage of Mrs. Pelosi’s plan have cast aside their responsibility to the constituents who elected them.
Mr. McGovern responded to Mr. McCarthy’s accusations on the House floor by saying he had never seen any representative behave like the House minority leader.
“When he talks about no accountability in this process, I don’t even know what the hell he’s talking about,” Mr. McGovern said. “I really don’t.”
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.
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