Proxy voting was originally set to expire after 45 days. But temporary pandemic measures have a funny way of sticking around.
Proxy voting was originally set to expire after 45 days, but it has been continually extended by House Democratic leadership.
I n recent months, the House of Representatives — taking its cues from the American people for once — has taken steps to move on from Covid. In late February, the Capitol physician repealed the House mask mandate, in keeping with the CDC’s updated guidance. Last week, officials announced a phased reopening of the Capitol, allowing a limited number of public tours for the first time in two years.
But one pandemic “emergency” measure lingers: proxy voting. The provision, originally implemented by House Democrats in May 2020, “allows Members from across the country to continue legislating on behalf of the American people while adhering to the advice of medical experts and protecting public health,” authorizing “virtual hearings, markups, and depositions . . . with Members participating from any location.” It also allows House members to vote on one another’s behalf if a representative isn’t physically present.
The unprecedented move — the first of its kind in the institution’s history — was presented as a “temporary” measure when it was first floated. “The changes that we are talking about here aren’t permanent ones,” Jim McGovern (D., Mass.) assured his colleagues. “These are temporary, to be used only during this pandemic. Once it is over, we go back to working side by side and in person.” But temporary measures have a funny way of sticking around. Proxy voting was originally set to expire after 45 days, but it has been continually extended by House Democratic leadership — first through the end of the 116th Congress, then again through the end of 2021.
On Monday, Nancy Pelosi extended the proxy-voting measures yet again. Citing the sergeant-at-arms’ “notification . . . that a public health emergency is in effect due to a novel coronavirus,” Pelosi announced that she was “hereby extending the ‘covered period’. . . until May 14, 2022.” And that’s at least May 14, to be clear; if recent precedent is any indication, we have every reason to believe that the speaker will continue to extend the measure indefinitely.
Many House Democrats have been open about their desire to make proxy voting permanent, in spite of their initial promises to the contrary. Last March, Representative Dan Kildee (D., Mich.) called the prospect of permanent proxy-voting “something worthy of consideration.” Earlier this month, House majority leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md.) said at a Rules Committee hearing that “I see a number of cases in which it may be appropriate to continue having it as an option — not as a preference, not as a practice — but as an option, such as when members may be ill, have to care for a sick loved one, or welcome a new child.” McGovern himself waved away concerns about the indefinite expansion of the measure in July 2021: “What I am worried about right now is do we have people who continue to deny or downplay what happened on Jan. 6, or circle the wagons around the crazy lies around the election,” he told the New York Times. “That is destroying Congress — not the ability of a small group of people to vote remotely or by proxy.”
In fact, many House members have already been using the practice as a pretext to spend less time in Congress, beyond the narrow Covid-related absences that the provision was ostensibly intended to allow. Just a week after the measure was passed, two Florida Democrats — Representatives Charlie Crist and Darren Soto — sent a letter to the House clerk saying they were unable to attend to their duties in D.C. “due to the ongoing public health emergency.” But instead of quarantining, both of them announced their intentions to attend Florida’s space launch. After January 6, some House members voted remotely due to security concerns. And it’s not just Democrats. Many Republicans have been more than happy to make use of proxy voting: Citing the “ongoing public health emergency,” 13 House Republicans designated a proxy to cast votes for them while they attended the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) last month.
Still, “No one has benefited more from the arrangement than Speaker Nancy Pelosi,” the New York Times reported. “It has allowed Ms. Pelosi, whose majority is so slim that she can afford to lose no more than four Democrats if every member is present and voting, to all but ensure that absences alone do not cost her pivotal support.” According to a CNN analysis of Congress from January to July 2021, 73 percent of House Democrats utilized proxy voting at least once, in contrast with just 37 percent of House Republicans.
There are entirely nonpartisan reasons to oppose the measure, too. As Representative Mike Gallagher (R, Wis.) argued in NR last March, the continued expansion of the proxy-voting system threatens to weaken an already-enfeebled Congress. It used to be the case that “members who worked hard and conducted the unglamorous but vital work of legislation and oversight rose through the ranks and accumulated prestige,” Gallagher wrote. “Now, power and prestige are more likely to come from inflammatory tweets, punchy TV hits, or Instagram-video views. Attaining C-list political-celebrity status has become more important for many members than conducting oversight and considering legislation.” He continued:
Proxy voting pours kerosene on this trend of Congress becoming merely a media and fundraising platform. Consider when members choose to vote by proxy. Most members of Congress return to their district over the weekend, so work weeks are punctuated by “fly in” and “fly out” days. On fly-in days, members are 10 percent more likely to vote by proxy than during the middle of the week. On fly-out days, proxy-voting utilization is 22 percent higher. This was on full display last month, when more than a dozen of my Republican colleagues signed proxy forms certifying that the pandemic kept them from their duties in Congress, only to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Florida on the same day that Nancy Pelosi jammed a $1.9 trillion monstrosity of a bill through Congress.
We’re three months into 2022. In a body where the vast majority of its members are vaccinated, any Covid-related justification for proxy voting is an insult to the American people’s intelligence. What’s more, the Senate has never implemented remote voting, despite the fact that the average senator is four years older than the average representative. House Republican leadership has vowed to repeal the measure if their party retakes the lower chamber in November. Let’s hope their word is good.