The Speaker has ended proxy voting.
According to a Fox News report, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy has officially ended former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s COVID-era proxy voting which allowed House members to vote from remote locations.
“No more proxy voting,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced Thursday. “Effective immediately, Members of Congress have to show up to work if they want their vote to count.”
From Fox News:
Proxy voting was established by former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in May 2020 to allow Congress to operate under COVID-19 pandemic protocols. Instead of showing up for votes, a member of Congress could submit a letter to have a colleague announce their position on bills and amendments and even cast votes in their name.
Republicans have argued this policy enabled abuse and permitted legislators to neglect their responsibilities, though many GOP lawmakers took advantage of proxy voting in the last Congress.
In 2020, 160 Republicans signed on to a lawsuit brought by McCarthy challenging the practice that was rejected by the Supreme Court. But by the end of 2021, roughly 70% of the original Republican plaintiffs had voted by proxy, according to a study by the Brookings Institute.
While proxy voting was intended as a “public health emergency” policy, lawmakers in both parties have pawned off their votes to attend campaign events and other functions entirely unrelated to their health concerns with voting in-person.
More over at Fox News:
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy officially ends proxy voting https://t.co/SE3IYWnKTX
— Fox News Politics (@foxnewspolitics) January 19, 2023
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