New GOP mom wants to change House rules
WASHINGTON — When she arrived in Congress last year, Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a hardright Republican from Florida, joined the rest of her party in staunchly opposing proxy voting, a practice adopted by House Democrats to allow for remote legislating during the pandemic.
Then, in August, she gave birth to her first child, and her perspective changed. Now, Luna is pressing to allow new mothers in Congress to stay away from Washington immediately after giving birth and designate a colleague to cast votes on the House floor on their behalf.
Given Republicans’ deep opposition to proxy voting, the bill Luna plans to introduce to make the change faces long odds to even be given a floor vote. But it raises a novel issue for a maledominated institution where the average age is nearly 58 — a place that is largely exempt from workplace laws and is still behind in bringing some of its arcane practices in line with modern expectations.
Luna, 34, is only the 12th member of Congress to give birth while in office. Despite her intention to have what she referred to as an all-natural “granola” delivery and quickly return to her duties on Capitol Hill, things did not go according to plan. She suffered from preeclampsia and had to have labor induced, then experienced a difficult delivery and developed mastitis afterward. Pumped full of blood-pressure medication and antibiotics, she was prohibited by her doctor from traveling.
Her plans for an immediate return to Washington were foiled, and Luna was grounded in St. Petersburg as the House faced crucial votes on a stopgap spending plan to avoid a government shutdown, which she vehemently opposed. She was still out when the House took its historic vote to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy. (She won’t say how she would have voted on that one, calling it “old history.”)
Still smarting about what she considered the unfairness of it all, Luna was inspired to draft the bill she is introducing this week. It would effectively grant new mothers in Congress six weeks of maternity leave from voting, making an exception to House rules that allows them to vote by proxy during that period.
“You plan for one thing, and it totally changes,” Luna said of her expectations of childbirth in a recent interview from her office on Capitol Hill, while her 4month-old son, Henry, napped in a rocker on her desk. (Luna says she has no child care and brings Henry to the Capitol almost every day she is in Washington, perching him on her desk through most of her meetings.)
“You’re being forced to choose between your career and having a family,” she said. “We’re in way too much of a tech age for that even to be acceptable. What happens if I have to vote on war?”
In the interview, Luna sidestepped a question about why postpartum mothers should get a reprieve from voting on the House floor in person when members dealing with medical conditions that prevent them from traveling, or men helping their wives recover from difficult births such as the one she experienced, do not.
“I’m not tackling that issue,” she said. “Proxy voting has to be treated respectfully and delicately. Republicans could have a one-seat majority and we have a member that’s pregnant.”
Luna is a proud MAGA warrior and combative ally for former president Donald Trump, but motherhood appears to have brought out a slightly more bipartisan perspective, at least when it comes to babies. She said Representative Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat and the minority leader, who constantly rails against lawmakers such as Luna whom he calls “MAGA extremists,” sent her flowers after the birth of her son.
Luna is cheerleading for women in Congress to have more babies and bring them to Washington.
“Let’s have more members bring their families,” she said. “It would make this place so much more palatable to have kids here.”