Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) knocked Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) on Tuesday after she declared that members of Congress “need to show up for work” as she argued against proxy voting in the chamber ― even for new parents.
“She doesn’t seem to be that upset over the fact that Donald Trump conducts most of his business from a golf course in Mar-a-Lago,” McGovern said of the president, who has thus far handed taxpayers a $26 million bill for golf outings in his second term.
McGovern’s remarks arrived prior to the House advancing a rule ― backed by Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) and Brittany Pettersen (D-Colo.), both of whom are new parents ― to allow a member of Congress to vote by proxy for up to 12 weeks or more after the birth or adoption of a child.
It marked a defeat for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) as Luna overcame party leadership’s efforts to block her bill.
Foxx, the chair of the House Rules Committee who has previously slammed her colleagues for leaning on proxy voting, turned to the Merriam-Webster dictionary’s definition of Congress to stress that the chamber is about the “act of coming together and meeting.”
“I’ve never voted by proxy because I believe it undermines the fabric of that sacred act of convening,” she said.
“I know there’s a new laptop class in America that seems to operate increasingly in a virtual space, but that’s simply not a fact of life for most of American workers,” she continued.
McGovern, in his response to Foxx, noted that Johnson has turned to proxy voting dozens of times, FBI Director Kash Patel has asked to work remotely from his Las Vegas home, and Rules Committee members have used proxy voting to go to the 2021 Conservaitve Political Action Conference.
“I mean the bottom line is Republicans love to talk about family values but when given the chance to actually support families, they turn their backs,” he said.
“She talks about looking into Webster’s dictionary about the definition of Congress,” he added. “Well, while you’re at it, look up the definition of representation. There’s nothing that says that you can’t represent your constituents or that you shouldn’t be able to represent them because you just had a new baby.”