Cnn
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GOP representative Anna Paulina Luna said on Sunday that she had entered into an agreement with President Mike Johnson in their confrontation for having voted by proxy for the new parents, who had paralyzed the room last week.
Luna Written on x That it and Johnson agreed to formalize a secular procedure called “live / death pairing”, allowing members to vote by proxy when they are “unable to be physically present to vote”, including those who are new parents, bereaved or experiencing emergencies.
“Thanks to Potus and his support for the possibility of voting at the end of the child’s birth as well as those who worked hard to make these changes. If we really want a pro-family congress, these are the changes that must occur,” she said.
CNN contacted Johnson’s office over the agreement.
There has been a burst of calls in recent days between President Donald Trump, Johnson and Luna to seek a path in the long term, which interrupted all the soil action of the house last week, CNN previously reported.
Johnson sent members to the house on Tuesday after undergoing an embarrassing defeat when a group of nine GOP rebels, led by Luna, designed a procedural vote, despite a fierce pressure campaign of Johnson and his allies to support him.
“There was a ton of disinformation surrounding why the ground was closed in both cases, I am happy to see this resolved,” Luna wrote on X on Sunday.
If the leaders of the GOP did nothing to address this dead end, Luna could have forced her background bill this week using the leadership management tool known as the discharge petition. But the leadership of the GOP, as well as many members of the Freedom caucus, had fiercely opposed to the House exchange rules to allow the vote by proxy for the new parents – leading to the end.
Johnson and Luna fought for months during the thrust of the Florida congress to allow the proxy for newborns’s parents – an effort that started after giving birth last year and could not vote for weeks. But the institutionalist republican fiercely rejected the effort, forcing Luna to choose the more controversial approach to work with the Democrats.
Trump said Thursday that he was “in favor” of proxy vote for the new parents, separating publicly with President Johnson on the issue, although the president conceded that it was ultimately the speaker’s decision.
“I’m going to let the speaker make the decision, but I like the idea of being able, if you have a baby, I think you should be able to call and vote. I am in favor of that. I understand that some people are not, and I am not involved in the issue, but I did it.
Johnson personally used proxy voting during the pandemic when he was authorized under Nancy Pelosi of the time. But he has since argued – including justice – that it is unconstitutional.
Sarah Ferris de CNN has contributed to this story.