Democrats Eye Restoring Proxy Voting In The House — With Limits

House Democrats are moving toward allowing members to vote on the floor by proxy again after Republicans ended the Covid-era practice in 2023 — but the free-for-all rules that resulted in scores of members routinely voting remotely are unlikely to return.

Instead, members are coalescing around narrower proposals that would allow only new parents or those undergoing medical treatment to have colleagues cast their votes.

“We want to be responsive to members and their growing families, and be helpful to that, while understanding the complexities of actually voting here in this body,” Rep. Pete Aguilar of California, House Democrats’ No. 3, said in an interview.

Proxy voting is one of the many items House Democrats are weighing for inclusion in the rules governing the chamber in the next Congress. When Republicans took over the last time the majority changed hands in 2023, ending the practice was one of their top priorities. The then-incoming speaker, Kevin McCarthy, had unsuccessfully sued to block it as unconstitutional.

The practice was instituted in 2020 under then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the depths of the pandemic and it was used by hundreds of members of both parties in the nearly three years it was in effect. But now Democrats say they are cool to fully resurrecting what had been billed as an emergency measure.

“It's important that we're here,” Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), who underwent foot surgery this year and got a doctor’s permission to return to Capitol Hill early to avoid missing votes. “I recognize I want to welcome people who are in different stages in life, and that includes young people who may be starting a family. … So you have to figure out exactly how it would be set up in a way that it's not abused.”

Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-Colo.) led a bipartisan effort last year that would have allowed 12 weeks of remote voting for new parents. She said in an interview that she has proposed that the same policy be included in the upcoming House rules package, with the addition of parents who are adopting.

“I'm grateful that leadership has been open and supportive of the idea,” she said in an interview. “We're going to work through that process, and I'm hopeful that we'll actually change the rules so that this place is more accessible to parents.”

Her 2025 bill has 175 co-sponsors, including nine Republicans. Hakeem Jeffries, the presumptive incoming speaker, endorsed new-parent proxy voting at a Thursday news conference.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) tried to force Republican leaders to take up the policy last year, filing a discharge petition to send the issue straight to the floor only to scuttle the effort after a protracted battle with Speaker Mike Johnson. Luna said she has spoken to Democrats, including fellow Florida Rep. Jared Moskowitz, about advancing the policy next term and said in an interview, “I don't see why they wouldn't do that.”

“People talk about wanting Congress to get younger,” Moskowitz said in an interview. “Younger people are going to come with young kids and families, and so ultimately I do think for maternity and paternity leave we should look at that — for a limited period of time.”

Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) said she was confident the new-parent provision would be included and said “the question is what else gets included beyond parental leave.”

One idea floating around the caucus is to allow proxy voting for members on health leave or otherwise institute a policy that would allow leadership to review proxy voting requests on a case-by-case basis.

Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) previously backed an effort to codify sick leave proxy voting and said she would support including it in the new rules. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who battled cancer last term, said “the devil is in the details with that, but I've been open to where there's some kind of compelling medical necessity.”

But in terms of resurrecting the pandemic-era approach, which saw many members voting by proxy while they attended campaign and personal events, many Democrats aren’t interested in going back.

“It was getting out of hand there at the end during Covid, when people weren't using it for Covid,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) said in an interview. “I think it makes more sense to carve out limited exceptions.”

Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.