Anna Paulina Luna Sounds Off On GOP Leadership's Effort To Block Proxy Voting Discharge Petition

4/1/2025

During debate on the House floor, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) spoke in opposition to a rules package that included language to kill a discharge petition that would force a vote on allowing proxy voting for new parents in Congress.

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Transcript

00:00Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in opposition to this rule. As many of you

00:04might know, for over two years now I've been championing the cause to allow new

00:08female members of Congress the right to vote. Some of the American people might

00:12be surprised that if you are a female member and you have a child that you

00:15can't vote, which means that you can't execute your constitutional authority.

00:19For almost two years now in this cause I've met with leadership and I've

00:23exhausted all tools in my legislative toolkit to be able to bring this to

00:28the floor. As I was met with much opposition, I finally used the last tool

00:33that I had at my disposal, which was something known as a discharge petition,

00:36where I collected 218 signatures and expanded the ability to vote while

00:41recovering from childbirth, not just to mothers but also to young fathers in our

00:45governing body. Now leadership, because of the fact that they don't like that I was

00:50successful at this, is now trying to change the rules, but I want to talk

00:53about how fundamentally dangerous this rule change is. As of right now they've

00:58slipped language into this rule, and we'll get to what they attach the rule

01:01to in a second, that would permanently kill any ability for new members of

01:06Congress to be able to bring this up and allow those members, if they just had a

01:09child, to be able to vote. That's dangerous because of the fact that, A, not

01:13only, if I'm arguing this from a Republican standpoint, that we have a

01:16very slim majority, but also to think about the message that that sends

01:20allowing female members to be able to vote. In addition to that, I'd also like

01:25to add that for a while we've had the majority and we've had the ability to

01:28bring legislation to the floor on election integrity and also to call out

01:32rogue judges, and yet they chose at this point in time to tie this discharge

01:37petition killer to this rule that would also permanently paint me and the

01:42members supporting it, and I would like to also share that I'm one of the most

01:45conservative members of this body. I'd like to hold up my voting record to

01:48anyone else as not just being anti election integrity, but also enabling a

01:53position that I don't typically agree with. That in itself, I would say in this

01:58entire process, has been the most disappointing, especially from among my

02:02party, but I would also ask my colleagues to remember, up until 1916, female

02:07representation was not a common thing in Washington, D.C.

02:12I will yield to the gentlelady an additional 30 seconds.

02:16I urge all of my colleagues to give this a fair shot, vote no against the rule, allow this to come to the

02:21floor so that we can address it for the first time, I'd say in congressional

02:24history, and do the right thing. If we don't do the right thing now, it'll never

02:27be done. Thank you, I yield my time.

02:29Gentleman yields back. I reserve.

Anna Paulina Luna Sounds Off On GOP Leadership's Effort To Block Proxy Voting Discharge Petition

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