Speaker Mike Johnson has grand ambitions to finalize a budget plan next week and launch Republicans on a final sprint toward passing their “big, beautiful” domestic policy bill. One problem: He doesn't appear to have control of the House floor.
An internal GOP fight over whether new parents serving in the House should be able to cast votes by proxy has metastasized into a battle of wills between competing factions of Republicans. The showdown culminated in a stunning vote Tuesday where nine Republicans joined with Democrats to reject Johnson’s move to block the proxy-voting proposal.
Johnson responded by sending lawmakers home for the week, skipping planned votes on election integrity, judicial overreach and other key GOP priorities. Now he is scrambling to find an off-ramp as he pledges to finish work next week on a fiscal blueprint for their sprawling party-line agenda.
Publicly, he doubled down Wednesday on his opposition to Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s proxy-voting effort. The Florida Republican recruited several GOP colleagues to sign a discharge petition, successfully circumventing Johnson to force a floor vote.
Behind the scenes, however, he has been in frequent contact with Luna negotiating other potential legislative options in an attempt to unjam the House floor, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss the private conversations.
Johnson said Wednesday he was “actively working on every possible accommodation to make Congressional service simpler for young mothers.” By evening, he suggested a breakthrough was close.
“I think there may be a path through this,” Johnson told reporters. “We're trying to work through and resolve it in a way that satisfies everybody. So I think we can do that.” He said he was considering accommodations for new moms such as a nursing room off the House floor and an expansion of travel policies.
At stake is not only Johnson’s control of the House floor, but also the GOP’s tight timeline for advancing their closely watched megabill. Senate Republicans on Wednesday released a revised budget blueprint — a key intermediate step — and planned to work into the weekend to approve it. Johnson reiterated in a separate interview he wants the House to give it final approval next week.
But first he needs to find a way to accommodate both Luna and her group of GOP allies, who have so far been intent on pushing through their proxy-voting proposal, and a similarly strong-willed group of Republican hard-liners, who have threatened to hold up House business themselves if Luna’s proposal isn’t sent to the dustbin.
So far Luna has not indicated she is willing to budge on her demand for a vote on her bill. She holds a trump card: With the discharge petition now complete and ripe for consideration, she could potentially call the measure up as soon as the House comes back into session. And if Johnson makes another attempt to stifle the vote, Luna and several of her GOP allies insist they will again join with Democrats and reject it.
They include a geographically and ideologically diverse group of GOP members who mostly aren’t known as rebels, including ...
