Anna Paulina Luna drops proxy voting effort, supports Mike Johnson vote-pairing compromise

U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna has abandoned her effort to make the House allow proxy voting for new parents.

The St. Petersburg Republican’s Office confirmed she will not bring a discharge petition to the floor Tuesday as scheduled. Luna’s decision was hinted at this weekend, when she said she and Speaker Mike Johnson, who has called proxy voting unconstitutional, had reached an agreement on an alternative way for individuals to impact floor votes without being in attendance.

“Speaker Johnson and I have reached an agreement to bring back a procedure called live/dead pairing, which dates back to the 1800s,” Luna posted Sunday. “It will be open for the entire conference to use when unable to vote (e.g., new parents, bereaved, emergencies, etc.).”

But any formal implementation of the deal has yet to occur.

Of note, vote pairing can happen informally now. A notable instance occurred in the U.S. Senate in 2018, when Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska paired her vote regarding the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh with that of U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, a Montana Republican. Daines supported Kavanaugh but Murkowski did not. Murkowski voted present instead of “no,” which allowed Daines to attend his daughter’s wedding without impacting if the Senate reached cloture.

Notably, Luna has fought for proxy voting for new parents in a bipartisan fashion. She worked closely with U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, a Colorado Democrat who recently had a child. Luna had her first child in 2023, also after her election to Congress. The two rallied the needed 218 signatures from members of both parties to force a vote.

Johnson ardently opposed the effort, and put an effort to prohibit the petition moving forward on the floor last week. Despite Johnson attaching priority Republican legislation, his effort failed, and the Speaker shut down the floor for the rest of last week. In that time, President Donald Trump said he had no problem with proxy moving for new mothers, but ultimately left management of the House to Johnson.

A deal between Johnson and Luna was announced over the weekend, though Democrats decried the compromise.

“I am deeply grateful for Rep. Luna for championing the changes needed to ensure that moms and dads who are welcoming a new child are able to represent their constituents,” Pettersen posted on X. “When the Speaker refused to act, she continued working to make the House a more welcoming place for families. But the reality is — this outcome does not address the barriers we’ve fought so hard to overcome.”

But Luna is the chief sponsor of both the legislation in question and the discharge petition.

Luna told C-Span on Tuesday that her efforts had largely been misunderstood.

“This is not for maternity leave. It’s simply asking that members that are recovering from childbirth — which by the way has not been a huge number, we’re talking about 13 in U.S. history — can continue to vote while they’re in that recovery phase.”

She said vote pairing can achieve that same goal on important votes.