Unable to reach an agreement with their Republican colleagues, House Democrats will again attempt to change House rules to allow members to vote by proxy on legislation brought to the floor and let committees use technology to hold official business meetings.
“The intent of this is to allow the Congress to remain operative. We are the policymaking body and we cannot be neutered, if you will, by a virus,” Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer told CQ Roll Call on Wednesday morning, right around the time Democrats unveiled their proposal.
The 13-page resolution introduced by House Rules Chairman Jim McGovern, D-Mass., was not born out of the bipartisan Virtual Congress Task Force and returns largely to an April effort to allow proxy voting in the House.
The Rules Committee will consider the resolution on Thursday, along with a rule for floor debate on the next coronavirus relief package. That will set up likely passage of both measures on the floor Friday.
“It was somewhat of an informal task force to try to reach an agreement, and we didn’t,” Hoyer said. “We had a relatively short time to do so.”
The Maryland Democrat said that in addition to the urgency of the coronavirus pandemic, warnings from public health officials about a possible resurgence of the virus in the fall are driving the effort to ensure that Congress can operate if it once again becomes necessary to reduce the number of in-person gatherings.
“We will now move forward on these temporary emergency procedures to ensure the House can continue fully working for the people during this public health and economic emergency,” Hoyer, McGovern and House Administration Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said in a statement. “The time has come to act — further delay is not an option.”
Democrats say several Republican ideas were incorporated into the revised proxy voting and committee action resolution, including barring committees from conducting secret or executive sessions remotely, due to concerns about security.
Virtual committee action
The resolution would authorize House committees to hold virtual hearings, markups and depositions using software platforms approved by the chief administrative officer for remote participation.
Committee leaders would have the choice to conduct the proceedings entirely online or in a hearing room with some lawmakers on-site and others remote, in a hybrid model that the Senate has used in recent weeks.
Members participating remotely would count toward a quorum for purposes of determining committee proceedings and voting.
On the floor
The proposed change to House rules would allow an absent lawmaker to designate a colleague to vote on House floor matters on their behalf.
House members unable to travel to the Capitol would send a letter, electronically, to the clerk to authorize another member to vote on their behalf and would provide exact instruction on how to vote on each question on the floor.
“This is going to be a very limited, direct instruction from the person who’s giving the proxy to the person who’s holding the proxy and will counsel the proxy, specific instructions of how to vote on each and every issue,” Hoyer said.
The authorization could be updated as procedural or other unexpected votes arise during the session.
Members able and willing to vote in person on their own behalf could still do so. Members physically present would be eligible to cast votes on behalf of their colleagues, with a member limited to serving as a designated proxy for a maximum of 10 members. This limitation may be included to convince skeptical members concerned about designated proxies holding too much power.
The proposal is not a “general proxy” to allow minority and majority leaders to serve as proxies for members of their respective parties for a verbal roll call vote.
The clerk’s office would be required to post a list of designated proxies on its website, and members participating via proxy would be printed in the Congressional Record.
“Proxy voting is the first step,” said Hoyer.
The resolution also would require a study from the House Administration Committee on the feasibility of using technology to conduct remote voting in the House, including operable and secure technology options. It would also require the Rules Committee to develop regulations on implementation of remote voting.
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