This past week, Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson shut down Congress and sent everyone home for the week over a disagreement surrounding voting by proxy. It might sound crazy, but in 2025, Congress is not allowed to use proxy voting. That means that for a member of Congress to cast a vote on a bill, they must be in person to vote.
Members of Congress can miss votes for all sorts of reasons, including health reasons and more recently, due to growing your family. This might not have been as big of an issue when our representatives were primarily older men, but today we have a more representative Congress that includes younger men and women who are parents of young children. And it’s hard on new mothers and fathers to choose between doing their job or spending time welcoming home their new baby.
Representative Brittany Pettersen from Colorado made news last month when she had to fly to DC with her newborn son to cast a vote on an important issue. Since then she’s been working to make Congress a more welcoming place for young parents. This week she was part of a bi-partisan effort to allow new parents to vote by proxy, meaning they could be home with their newborn and still be able to vote on important legislation.
“Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this rule which restricts moms and dads from doing their jobs after welcoming a new child. It is unfathomable that in 2025 we have not modernized Congress to address these very unique challenges members face.”
Representative Brittany Pettersen
Despite the bi-partisan nature of this bill, Speaker Johnson refused to even allow a vote on the bill. He went so far as to call proxy voting “unconstitutional” without providing any evidence of why. He also ignored the fact that in 2021 and 2022, Congress allowed proxy voting, which led to a higher participation in Congressional voting.
And then he just sent everyone home for the week. Talk about a bad look for Speaker Johnson. His actions demonstrate why you should never fuck with moms.
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