- As COVID-19 raged, the House of Representatives voted in 2020 to allow members to vote by proxy.
- Hundreds of lawmakers — both Democrats and Republicans — took advantage of the change.
With the latest House rules package instituted at the beginning of January, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has finally won his battle against proxy voting. The result could haunt him at the worst possible time.
In 2020, the Democratic-controlled House voted on party lines to allow representatives to vote on behalf of their colleagues as a result of the COVID-19 public health crisis.
The result? Hundreds of representatives, both Republicans and Democrats, spent the 116th and 117th sessions of Congress voting for countless pieces of legislation while barely spending time in the nation's Capitol. An Insider analysis from April 2022, for example, found two Democrat representatives that showed up to vote in person less than 7% of the time since proxy voting was instituted.
McCarthy, and much of his caucus, was vehemently opposed. With newfound control of the House, one of McCarthy's first moves was to eliminate proxy voting when finalizing the House rules package. But this may have been a mistake.
The Republican Party holds just a very slim majority over Democrats in the House of Representatives — 222 Republicans to 212 Democrats — and needs 218 votes to pass any pieces of legislation.
At a time when a Speaker would ideally like to have the chance to guarantee the votes and backing of absent members, he's given away one of the best tools a Speaker had to nail down votes of the ill, the absent, the traveling, the unreliable, and those distracted by other ambitions. It could end up costing him.
Opposition
McCarthy, the Republican leader, has been a vocal opponent of proxy voting since its introduction, going as far as suing then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the sergeant-at-arms, and House clerk in an attempt to halt proxy voting from taking place.
"Democrats are creating a precedent for further injustice," McCarthy said. "If their changes are acceptable, what stops the majority from creating a 'House Rule' that stipulates the minority party's votes only count for half of the majority party's?"
Joined by 20 other GOP representatives, the lawsuit claimed the US Constitution only allowed for in-person voting and that proxy voting was unconstitutional. The suit ultimately failed — a US appeals court ruled that the federal courts don't have jurisdiction to alter House rules, a decision that was later upheld by a federal district court.
Republicans are not a unified party
Additionally, the Republican conference at the moment has not proven to operate as one unit, unlike House Democrats.
These issues came to a head during McCarthy's prolonged vote to become House speaker, which took several days and 15 total votes for him to finally reach the 218-vote threshold. By contrast, Democrats were in alignment from the very first vote as to who to elect as House minority leader: Rep. Hakeem Jeffries.
The fact that McCarthy's speakership vote — which members had months of time to prepare for — had countless holdouts from different GOP members and caucuses shows just how tenuous and difficult it will be for McCarthy to get key legislation passed, and that was with every member present in Washington, DC.
Members can't be in DC for all sorts of normal reasons
With 435 representatives in the House, it's routine for members to fall ill, become injured, or need surgery. Proxy voting rules allowed members to legislate from afar in that event. But now, no matter what happens to a lawmaker, they'll be unable to vote on legislation without being in person at the Capitol.
With this in mind, it appears that it'll be much more difficult for McCarthy to push legislation through the House without proxy voting, as he can't afford many holdouts. McCarthy's already down one GOP representative: Rep. Greg Steube's office recently announced that the Florida congressman fell 25 feet off of a ladder while cutting tree limbs.
—Congressman Greg Steube (@RepGregSteube) January 24, 2023
On Monday, Steube confirmed he'd be "sidelined in Sarasota for several weeks," meaning that until he's back, the Republican Party will have even less room for defectors or missing members.
Republican Rep. Russ Fulcher of Idaho, who at one point was the most prolific user of proxy voting in the House GOP, took advantage of proxy voting after being diagnosed with cancer — and beating it — in 2021.
"If it weren't for that availability, I'd have been here more at that time. But I took advantage of the situation as it was. No bones about it," Fulcher said to Insider.
Fulcher, who sits on the House Freedom Caucus, said he believes that meeting in-person leads to greater opportunities for bipartisanship.
"When you're face to face, you have a whole different ability to interact, build rapport," Fulcher said. "I think the chances of coming up with neutral, bipartisan solutions is so much better."
Removing proxy voting will affect more than just sick or injured lawmakers — it'll also prevent legislators running for higher office from being able to vote while on the campaign trail.
The 118th session of Congress may have just begun, but three members of the House — including GOP Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana — have already announced their plans to run for a spot in the Senate. Banks, particularly, will need to figure out a healthy balance of staying in Washington DC for votes while also campaigning across Indiana.
Additionally, as part of their job, members of Congress sometimes travel abroad to military bases and to allied countries as part of congressional delegations, also known as CODELs. These trips are generally funded by the federal government, and proxy voting allowed members to vote while abroad on important business. But no more.
Democratic Rep. Colin Allred, who used proxy voting for paternity leave in 2021, told Insider that the lack of proxy voting in the 118th Congress will ultimately come back to haunt the GOP.
"I think that it's very likely that at some point, there will be enough members missing that they will not have the numbers they need to pass a bill," Allred said. He pointed to both Steube's injury and the fact that COVID-19 has yet to be eradicated — the congressman noted he currently had a staffer out with the illness. "I don't think it's a full acknowledgment of the reality of where we are now in a post-COVID world. Every workplace has changed; the House changed."
While Fulcher agreed that a situation could arise where missing Republicans hamper the party from moving forward on a vote, he didn't think it was too likely.
"It can happen, obviously," he said. "But because everybody knows what we've just been talking about, they're gonna show up. They'll be here."
If they don't show up, McCarthy's first act as Speaker could also be the one that seals his fate.