Politics
Mike Johnson fails to squash Anna Paulina Luna’s proxy voting effort from new moms
House Speaker Mike Johnson exercised his power of the gavel Tuesday in an unusually aggressive effort to squash a proposal for new parents in Congress to able to vote by proxy, rather than in person, as they care for newborns.
His plan failed, 206-222.
In an unprecedented move, the House Republican leadership had engineered a way to quietly kill the bipartisan plan from two new mothers — Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of St. Petersburg and Democratic Rep. Brittany Pettersen of Colorado. Their plan has support from a majority of House colleagues. Some 218 lawmakers backed their effort, signing on to a so-called discharge petition to force their proposal on the House floor for consideration.
But Johnson, like GOP leaders before him, rails against proxy voting, as President Donald Trump pushes people back to work in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic work-from-home trend.
A procedural vote Tuesday tested who had the tally on their side — the speaker or the plan’s sponsors. Nine Republicans joined all Democrats to sink the GOP leaders’ effort.
“If we don’t do the right thing now, it’ll never be done,” said Luna, who gave birth to her son in 2023.
Pettersen, with a diaper over her shoulder and 4-month-old son Sam in her arms, stood on the House floor and pleaded with colleagues to turn back the GOP leadership’s effort to stop their resolution.
“It is unfathomable that in 2025 we have not modernized Congress,” she said. “We’re asking you to continue to stand with us.”
Johnson had drawn the line against proxy voting as unconstitutional.
“Look, I’m a father, I’m pro-family,” the Republican speaker said late last month. But “I believe it violates more than two centuries of tradition and institution. And I think that it opens a Pandora’s box, where ultimately, maybe no one is here.”
It’s the first time in modern House history that the leadership was taking the extraordinary step to try to halt a discharge petition when it’s this far along. Next steps are uncertain.
Luna used the discharge petition process as she and others grew frustrated that House committees and party leaders were not bringing the proxy-voting proposal forward. Instead, she and others gathered the majority signatures needed, 218, to discharge it from limbo, and force it to the floor for action.
At a rules committee hearing early Tuesday, the GOP-led panel tucked a provision into the routine rules process that would have prohibited not just this discharge petition but any others that try to push proxy voting forward.
Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the panel, said a discharge petition has never been halted before at this stage — a remarkable move from Republicans who often campaign as the party aligned with family values.
“Given the chance to actually support families, they turn their backs,” he said. “A majority of the chamber is upending what the majority in this chamber wants.”
Republicans countered that Luna, who led the discharge effort, did not go through the regular process of waiting for their resolution to be brought to the floor through normal procedure. And they criticized the temporary proxy voting policy that Democrats put in place during the pandemic that they said was abused by member absences.
“You have to come to work, you have to be present,” said Rep. Ralph Norman, a South Carolina Republican, during a committee debate.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, a North Carolina Republican and the chair of the Rules Committee, decried what she called the “laptop class” in America that doesn’t have the luxury of working by proxy. “Members of Congress simply need to show up for work,” she said.
About a dozen women have given birth while in Congress over the years, and there are many new fathers as well. One, Rep. Wesley Hunt, a Texas Republican, had dashed back to Washington for votes in 2023 after his wife had just given birth and their son was in an intensive care unit.
Many new and existing parents were among the eight other Republicans who joined Luna to push ahead past the leadership.
Luna’s petition opens the door for the House to vote on a resolution that would allow new parents serving in Congress to designate a proxy — another member of Congress — to vote on their behalf for 12 weeks.
Republicans had barred proxy voting once they took control of the House from Democrats in 2023. The new resolution, which includes specific procedures on how the new parent would deliver voting instructions, would mean a change in their House rules.
The resolution from the mothers allows proxy voting for lawmakers who have given birth or pregnant lawmakers who are unable to travel safely or have a serious medical condition. It also applies to lawmakers whose spouses are pregnant or giving birth.
Under the resolution, qualifying lawmakers may designate a proxy to cast a vote for them for up to 12 weeks.
Luna, who is among the House’s more conservative lawmakers, made headlines for her steadfast support of Trump. But she resigned this week from the archconservative House Freedom Caucus, saying she could no longer be part of the group if members “broker backroom deals” against its values.
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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
The bipartisan legislation adds would add new regulation and enforcement to the industry.
A Senate bill approved on the floor Wednesday would increase regulation for hemp products and provide funds for the state to buy testing hemp-detecting gear.
The bill (SB 438), which passed unanimously, would provide that a “marijuana testing laboratory may acquire hemp and hemp extract only from certain businesses.” It would also revise requirements for the sale and distribution of hemp extract and ban businesses and food establishments from possessing hemp or hemp extract products deemed “attractive to children.”
The measure would also earmark $2 million in state funds for state law enforcement equipment that could detect products with hemp in them during traffic stops.
“The bill says that you can have a beverage in a can, bottle or whatever up to 5% hemp. If it’s greater than that, it’s no longer hemp; it’s marijuana,” said the bill’s co-sponsor, Winter Haven Republican Sen. Colleen Burton.
She added that hemp products have largely gotten a pass in Florida since medicinal marijuana was legalized in 2017. But hemp is sometimes just as psychoactively potent, she said, and people who overuse the products have sometimes died.
Burton’s co-sponsor on the bill, Jacksonville Democratic Sen. Tracie Davis, said the proliferation of hemp in Florida is out of control, and it’s time to reel it in.
“We’re going to create that regulatory framework,” she said. “Lawmakers of this state that have regulated the medical marijuana industry, it is time to regulate the hemp industry.”
SB 438’s House companion (HB 1597) is nearly identical and is to be heard next by the Housing, Agriculture & Tourism Subcommittee.
There are nearly a half-dozen other measures in the Legislature this Session calling for increased restrictions on Florida’s hemp industry.
SB 438 follows increased regulations instituted by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services in March that limit marketing campaigns for hemp products and could punish hemp companies that market to children.
A heated exchange at a budget hearing has the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) firing back at Rep. Alex Andrade.
At a House Health Care Budget Committee meeting Wednesday, Andrade, a Pensacola Republican, questioned how the Hope Florida initiative received $10 million in a settlement between a Medicaid managed care operator and the state.
That included an intense back-and-forth for over an hour. After the meeting, AHCA issued a statement intensely critical of Andrade, and AHCA Secretary Shevaun Harris posted a video alongside other agency heads in Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration attacking the lawmaker.
“It’s concerning how little Representative Andrade understands about Medicaid, as demonstrated in his performative committee hearing today,” said AHCA spokesperson Mallory McManus. “He also purposefully misconstrued the structure and nature of the Hope Florida program, which is shameful. AHCA is proud of our work serving Floridians, particularly in helping people reduce government dependency and achieving economic self-sufficiency.”
Importantly, the agency has been a project championed by First Lady Casey DeSantis, who continues to mull a run for Governor in 2026 when her husband cannot seek re-election due to term limits.
Andrade has questioned claims that Hope Florida brought 30,000 Floridians off welfare, a number similar to that of individuals dropped from Medicaid.
He said the attacks on his questions attempt to dodge legislative oversight.
“Given the demonstrable incompetence exhibited by representatives of AHCA today, I’ll take this bizarre public statement as a badge of honor,” Andrade posted after AHCA issued its statement.
Harris in an online video called questions from lawmakers “a complete ambush.”
“It was clear that it was an ambush, an attack, on Hope Florida, a model and philosophy that was founded in 2021 and designed specifically to help Floridians,” Harris said. “It’s a shame that the good stories, the positive impact that the model has been able to do in our state, was discounted and instead focused on smear attacks and conflating the facts.”
Department of Children and Families Secretary Taylor Hatch echoed the concern.
“We have been able to serve 30,000 Floridians that have seen a reduction or a total removal of chronic dependency of benefits that has resulted in $100 million of savings by going outside of the four walls of government,” she said.
Education Secretary Manny Diaz Jr. and Juvenile Justice Secretary Eric Hall also cheered the program and called the House questions a “shameful approach.”
Andrade compared the online comments to a “hostage video.”
“My heart goes out to these public servants who’ve been put in a position to defend the terrible financial mismanagement of others in the Gov. Ron DeSantis administration,” he posted.
The exchange of words highlighted the tension between the House under Speaker Daniel Perez’s leadership and DeSantis, who in the first six years of his tenure largely saw the Legislature advance his agenda with little questioning.
The same committee has drawn attention to AHCA’s request for $160 million to pay for a Medicaid disallowance, money already given to the agency in 2023 for that purpose but which the agency spent elsewhere.
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