Mike Johnson Fumes at Republicans Who ‘Joined’ Dems In Killing His Proxy Vote Rule — Shuts Down House for the Week: ‘Can’t Have Any Further Action’
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) fumed at Republican lawmakers who “joined” Democrats in a Tuesday vote and he shut down the House agenda for the week.
A total of nine House Republicans voted with Democrats against a GOP bid to prevent lawmakers from making proxy votes. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) led the charge on the right as she has a proposal coming to the floor which is focused on allowing new parents more time at home. It would allow lawmakers to have a colleague vote in their place for 12 weeks after they or their spouse has given birth.
Luna resigned from the House Freedom Caucus after the group moved to block her proposal.
Speaker Johnson is a vocal critic of proxy voting and attempted to block the coming measure through Tuesday’s vote, which if successful, would have tabled Luna’s discharge petition and similar proposals on proxy voting.
On top of Luna, Reps. Tim Burchett (R-TN), Kevin Kiley (R-CA), Nick LaLota (R-NY), Mike Lawler (R-NY), Ryan Mackenzie (R-PA), Max Miller (R-OH), Greg Steube (R-FL) and Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) also went against Johnson on Tuesday.
Johnson told reporters after the vote:
Well, it was a very disappointing result on the floor there. A handful of Republicans joined with all the Democrats to take down a rule. That’s rarely done. It’s very unfortunate in this case. 96% of House Republicans voted against proxy voting because they believe it’s unconstitutional and they agree that it would open a Pandora’s box, so that’s what we just saw.
The Republican leader said all other agenda items were going to be put off so they can “do this again.”
He said:
Let me just make this clear. That rule being brought down means that we can’t have any further action on the floor this week. That means we will not be voting on the SAVE Act for election integrity. We will not be voting on the rogue judges who are attacking President Trump’s agenda. We will not be taking down these terrible Biden policies with the CRA votes. All that was just wiped off the table. It’s very unfortunate. We’ll regroup and come back and we’ll have to do this again.
Watch above via CSPAN.
