NR’s Diana Glebova reports that Nancy Pelosi has extended Covid-era proxy voting for the House . . . again:
Nancy Pelosi extended proxy voting for the House on Tuesday, continuing the pandemic-era rule until late September, despite numerous members of Congress using it as an excuse to go on vacation and campaign for reelection.
The extension until late September was proclaimed due to a “public health emergency” caused by Covid-19, the speaker of the House said in a letter to her colleagues.
As Diana notes, “A host of representatives were caught misusing the pandemic rule to go on vacation or to campaign for reelection while Congress was in session. Some of the lawmakers have used proxy votes several hundred times since it’s been enacted, including Pelosi’s fellow Californian, Eric Swalwell.”
As I wrote back in March, this is a continuing (mostly) Democratic boondoggle that has nothing to do with public health and everything to do with politics:
“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.
The proxy-voting provision, which allows for “virtual hearings, markups, and depositions . . . with Members participating from any location,” “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,” I wrote. “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.”
When it comes to the border, Democrats tell us the pandemic is over — that’s the rationale for the push to end the pandemic-era Title 42 provision “that turned away asylum-seekers to prevent the spread of Covid,” as NR’s editors wrote in April. But Covid is still very much with us insofar as it allows Pelosi to squeeze as much juice as possible out of her slim House majority. Go figure.