Republican leaders have repeatedly shot down proposals for proxy voting in the House, including some narrowly tailored to give new parents flexibility. But lawmakers are already voting on their colleagues’ behalf — whether they call it “proxy voting” or not — all the time.
Several Republicans told NOTUS that it’s common practice for lawmakers to hand over their voting cards to other members to physically swipe in the electronic tallying machines on the floor, which goes against House rules and undercuts Republicans’ position on proxy voting.
It’s an open secret in the House. Lawmakers said this de facto proxy voting most often occurs out of convenience when multiple lawmakers are huddled in the same House aisle and one member is closest to the machine. But it also frequently happens when a member stays behind in the cloakroom or runs to the bathroom.
“On the floor, it’s common,” Rep. Thomas Massie said this week after NOTUS noticed a member carrying multiple voting cards outside the men’s bathroom next to the Speaker’s Lobby. “When kids are on the floor, we give them our cards to vote for us. That’s been going on for as long as I’ve been here,” he said.
But Massie, like other Republicans, argued that it’s completely different from the proxy voting instituted in the House under Democratic leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic, when members were able to designate another lawmaker to vote for them without physically being in the Capitol.
“They’ll give their card to one [another] to vote, but after confirming if they’re a yes or a no,” another House Republican, who asked to speak anonymously so they could be candid, told NOTUS. This lawmaker said they’ve never known anyone who has done this while absent from the Capitol, and they believed it sometimes happens because lawmakers are “just comfortable” in the cloakroom off the House floor.
It’s an irritating situation for GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who has led a bipartisan effort to allow new parents to vote by proxy. She experienced health complications during her pregnancy in 2023 that prevented her from traveling to Washington.
“Every single person on the floor, I think with the exception of like, five, has done it,” she told NOTUS when asked about members handing each other their voting cards, specifying that she’s only seen it happen on the floor or by the voting machines. “Technically, that’s vote by proxy,” she said.
Luna added that it was more reason for her colleagues to support her vote-by-proxy resolution.
A House leadership aide told NOTUS that GOP leaders are concerned that allowing proxy voting in special circumstances could lead to a “slippery slope dynamic,” and that it would be an impediment to “member collegiality.” During the pandemic, some members claimed they were absent and needed to vote by proxy due to health concerns or pandemic-related travel disruption, but they were campaigning for other offices back home — in person — at the same time.
But even though the House banned the practice, voting cards are commonly traded in the Republican cloakroom, lawmakers told NOTUS. The room is a quiet place to take calls and is stocked with amenities for lawmakers, from phone chargers to ice cream sandwiches and hot dogs for sale. (In a text, Massie said the chefs in each party’s cloakroom “will grill you a grill cheese or ham sandwich” if that’s what members prefer.)
Former Rep. Mo Brooks, an Alabama Republican, told NOTUS he thinks handing over voting cards is OK if it “saves congressmen the trouble of trying to vote at a crowded voting machine.”
As long as every lawmaker confirms the votes are correct, he said, it’s fine.
Speaker Mike Johnson in particular has been a vocal critic of proxy voting, and argued in recent weeks that the practice is unconstitutional. He told CNN last month that while he has “sympathy” for new parents in Congress, the practice’s unconstitutionality is an “inescapable truth.” Republicans are largely aligned with leadership on the issue.
“I’m not for it. I think you should show up and vote,” Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio told NOTUS, while acknowledging that he’s seen people hand their voting card to another member while they’re tied up with other business, such as running into the restroom.
Previous House Republican leaders have argued that any form of proxy voting in the chamber would be unconstitutional. They challenged pandemic-era proxy voting rules in court.
At least one former member, the South Carolina representative Mark Sanford, said he did not remember members exchanging voting cards often early in his time in Congress and called it a “total wrong.”
“As you know, all things seem to slide backward in D.C.,” he lamented.
Matt Glassman, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Government Affairs Institute, told NOTUS that a section in the House rules “specifically and emphatically prohibits all of this.”
Clause 2 of Rule 3 of the House’s rulebook includes language barring members from authorizing other people to cast their votes. “No other person may cast a Member’s vote or record a Member’s presence in the House,” it states.
That this is such a common practice is striking, given the situation of one current lawmaker. Democratic Rep. Brittany Pettersen, who did not comment specifically on members handing off their cards, is currently missing votes because she had a baby last week — the 14th lawmaker ever to do so while serving in Congress. (She posted on X last month that “it’s clear Congress wasn’t designed with young families and parents in mind.”)
“I’m going to take the time to prioritize the health and well-being of my newborn,” she told NOTUS in January. “But if there’s a critical vote that I have to fly there for, I’m going to somehow try to make it work.”
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Emily Kennard is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow. Haley Byrd Wilt is a reporter at NOTUS.