House cancels rest of votes for week after GOP floor rebellion [View all]

Source: The Hill

04/01/25 3:33 PM ET


House Republicans leaders on Tuesday canceled votes for the rest of the week after a band of GOP lawmakers staged a rebellion on the floor, bringing legislative action to a screeching halt. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) informed lawmakers that the next vote in the House would be Monday evening.

The announcement came minutes after nine Republicans joined all Democrats in opposing a procedural rule that would have killed a bipartisan effort to allow proxy voting for new parents. The vote also blocked planned votes on GOP priorities to limit the power of federal judges and to require proof of citizenship to vote.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) successfully used an arcane and rarely-successful discharge petition procedure to force a vote on Rep. Brittany Pettersen’s (D-Colo.) resolution to allow members who give birth or lawmakers whose spouses give birth to have another member vote for them for 12 weeks. But amid opposition from Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) — who has argued that proxy voting is unconstitutional — the leadership-controlled House Rules Committee inserted language into a procedural rule to kill Luna’s effort.

That hardball tactic, however, failed on Tuesday when nine Republicans voted with Democrats to torpedo the procedural vote, bringing key legislative action on the floor to a halt. Without adopting a rule, the House is unable to debate and vote on big-ticket legislative items.

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5226248-house-cancels-votes-gop-rebellion/