A New Republican Mom Wants to Change House Rules for Postpartum Voting

When she arrived in Congress last year, Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a hard-right Republican from Florida, joined the rest of her party in staunchly opposing proxy voting, a practice adopted by House Democrats to allow for remote legislating during the pandemic.

Then, in August, she gave birth to her first child and her perspective changed. Now, Ms. Luna is pressing to allow new mothers in Congress to stay away from Washington immediately after giving birth and designate a colleague to cast votes on the House floor on their behalf.

Given Republicans’ deep opposition to proxy voting, the bill Ms. Luna plans to introduce on Tuesday to make the change faces long odds to even be given a floor vote. But it raises a novel issue for a male-dominated institution where the average age is nearly 58 — a place that is largely exempt from workplace laws and is still behind in bringing some of its arcane practices in line with modern expectations.

Ms. Luna, 34, is only the 12th member of Congress to give birth while in office. Despite her intention to have what she referred to as an all-natural “granola” delivery and quickly return to her duties on Capitol Hill, things did not go according to plan. She suffered from pre-eclampsia and had to have labor induced, then experienced a difficult delivery and developed mastitis afterward. Pumped full of blood-pressure medication and antibiotics, she was prohibited by her doctor from traveling.

Her plans for an immediate return to Washington were foiled and Ms. Luna was grounded in St. Petersburg as the House faced crucial votes on a stopgap spending plan to avoid a government shutdown, which she vehemently opposed. She was still out when the House took its historic vote to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy. (She won’t say how she would have voted on that one, calling it “old history.”)

Still smarting about what she considered the unfairness of it all, Ms. Luna was inspired to draft the bill she is introducing this week. It would effectively grant new mothers in Congress six weeks of maternity leave from voting, making an exception to House rules that allows them to vote by proxy during that period.

“You plan for one thing and it totally changes,” Ms. Luna said of her expectations of child birth in a recent interview from her office on Capitol Hill, while her 4-month-old son, Henry, napped in a rocker on her desk. (Ms. Luna says she has no child care and brings Henry to the Capitol almost every day she is in Washington, perching him on her desk through most of her meetings.)

“You’re being forced to choose between your career and having a family,” she said. “We’re in way too much of a tech age for that even to be acceptable. What happens if I have to vote on war?”

Her bill is exceedingly narrow. It would carve out an exception only for women who have physically given birth, not for members who adopt a child or have a child by surrogate, or for new fathers.

In the interview, she sidestepped a question about why postpartum mothers should get a reprieve from voting on the House floor in person when members dealing with medical conditions that prevent them from traveling, or men helping their wives recover from difficult births like the one she experienced, do not.

“I’m not tackling that issue,” she said. “Proxy voting has to be treated respectfully and delicately. Republicans could have a one-seat majority and we have a member that’s pregnant.”

Because there are relatively few women of childbearing age serving in Congress, the idea of maternity leave for members has rarely been broached. But Ms. Luna says she is now even considering introducing legislation to create a constitutional amendment to address the issue.

She noted that congressional aides were afforded maternity leave, but that for lawmakers themselves, “there’s nothing.”

It is all a change for a hard-line member of the party that railed against proxy voting when Nancy Pelosi, the speaker at the time, instituted it as a coronavirus protection measure. Republicans even went to the Supreme Court in an unsuccessful effort to end it.

When Republicans took control of the chamber last year and adopted new rules, they terminated the practice.

In their federal lawsuit, Republican leaders argued that proxy voting was unconstitutional, but Ms. Luna claims she has found a way around that objection. The Constitution states that a quorum must be present for each chamber of Congress to do business. Her legislation would not allow for proxy voting for the quorum call, permitting remote voting only on legislation brought up after that.

Her bill is backed by an unlikely bipartisan band of 20 lawmakers including Representatives Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, and Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan and the chair of the Congressional Mamas’ Caucus.

For the moment, it would have little immediate practical effect. There is currently just one member of Congress who has announced she is pregnant: Jenniffer González-Colón, the Republican resident commissioner of Puerto Rico who is one of six members of the House who do not have the right to vote on legislation. But Ms. Luna said she was hoping it would apply to more members in the future.

With the narrow Republican majority dwindling to just a two-vote edge, Ms. Luna may not be the only Republican wishing the party had allowed for more leeway in the past when it came to remote voting. Retirements, an expulsion and absences for illness mean that the House G.O.P. now risks the very real possibility that it could be outnumbered by Democrats on any legislative workday.

Ms. Luna is also not the only member trying to institute some changes around voting on the House floor to make life easier for lawmakers dealing with physical hardships. In June, Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, and a group of Democrats offered an amendment to House rules that would allow members to vote by proxy if they or their family members were experiencing serious medical conditions, including a pregnancy-related condition. Mr. Raskin recently underwent chemotherapy for lymphoma and announced in April that his cancer was in remission. The proposal has gone nowhere.

Ms. Luna said she had talked to Speaker Mike Johnson about her legislation but received no indication that he would back it, and a spokesman for Mr. Johnson declined to comment.

Republican leadership, however, has generally opposed opening the door to proxy voting, fearing that one exception will become a slippery slope for more, and because of the negative effect they think it will have on member “collegiality.”

If she does not get a green light, Ms. Luna said she would try to force a vote on her bill by starting a discharge petition, which allows legislation to bypass the normal channels and come to the floor if 218 lawmakers sign on in support of it.

Ms. Luna said both parties would be hypocritical if they did not back her legislation.

“You have Republicans championing family and motherhood,” she said. “And you have Democrats championing women’s rights.”

Ms. Luna is a proud MAGA warrior and combative ally for former President Donald J. Trump, but motherhood appears to brought out a slightly more bipartisan perspective, at least when it comes to babies. She said Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, who constantly rails against lawmakers like Ms. Luna whom he calls “MAGA extremists,” sent her flowers after the birth of her son.

“A lot of members across the board, they love Henry,” she added.

Ms. Luna said she planned to gift any future pregnant member — Democrat or Republican — compression socks, which she credits with saving her feet during long days walking around the Capitol complex.

And Ms. Luna is cheerleading for women in Congress to have more babies and bring them to Washington.

“Let’s have more members bring their families,” she said. “It would make this place so much more palatable to have kids here.”