The battle between Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) and House GOP leaders over looming floor action to allow proxy voting for new parents is intensifying as both sides of the heated debate dig in their heels — with the clash potentially coming to a head as soon as next week.

Luna says she has no intention of backing down from her effort — despite leadership offering her prime committee spots or other incentives, she claims — and remains confident she will succeed.

“I don’t play to lose,” Luna told reporters. “You guys will have a good news cycle next week.”

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), meanwhile, spent this week trying to convince other Republicans to oppose proxy voting, which he argues is unconstitutional and creates a slippery slope — successfully persuading some GOP lawmakers to change their minds.

But the Speaker is quickly running out of carrots and, as a result, is being pushed by other anti-proxy voting members to take a more aggressive approach — including pitching a way to “turn off” the procedural privilege mechanism that would allow her to force a vote, according to a source.

Luna circumvented GOP leadership by getting signatures from 218 members — including 11 other Republicans — on a rarely successful tool known as a discharge petition to force floor action on the matter. The underlying resolution is led by Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-Colo.), who had a son in January, and would allow members who give birth or lawmakers whose spouses give birth to designate another member to vote on their behalf for 12 weeks.

Proxy voting was widely used by both parties when it was implemented under Democratic leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it drew widespread Republican criticism and unsuccessful legal challenges.

Johnson and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) — a member of the House Rules Committee — met with Luna on Wednesday to discuss a path........

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