House Republicans said Wednesday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s new proxy voting rules are a power play that disenfranchises the votes of tens of millions of constituents nationwide.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Democrats who have taken advantage of Mrs. Pelosi’s rules have cast aside their responsibility to the constituents who elected them. Mrs. Pelosi pushed the rules through the House earlier this month to allow representatives to designate a colleague to vote on floor action in the event of their absence.
“If Democrats are successful in allowing a proxy vote to make their own rules, what stops them from making a rule that only certain people can vote or certain members cannot have a full vote or a half-vote? Nothing,” the California Republican told reporters. “Yes the House can make their rules, but they cannot make something different than the Constitution says.”
Mr. McCarthy said as of Wednesday morning, 71 Democrats informed the House clerk that they had given their vote to another House member, with one Democrat having control over representatives’ votes from five different states. Mr. McCarthy said those 71 Democrats transferring their votes have cast aside their duty to represent 48 million people nationwide.
Such proxy-voting in the House is expected to occur for the first time ever this week, and Mr. McCarthy said it breaks with the House’s history of working through terrible times such as after the 9/11 terrorist attack or during the Civil War. Mr. McCarthy hit the airwaves on Wednesday to trash Mrs. Pelosi’s plan, starting on Fox News on Wednesday morning.
On Tuesday, House Republicans urged a federal judge to intervene and stop Mrs. Pelosi’s designated-voter plan from taking effect. 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.
If Republicans fail to stop Mrs. Pelosi’s plan, Mr. McCarthy said 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,” Mr. McCarthy told reporters. “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.”
While the House has moved toward remote-voting in the chamber, the Senate returned to work several weeks ago and proceeded to vote to confirm several of President Trump’s nominees to federal agencies and federal courts.
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.
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