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GOP may look to Trump for answer on Luna's proxy vote war

11 0
thursday

With the House at a standstill amid GOP disputes about proxy voting for new parents, a sense is growing that President Trump might have to weigh in to get them out of the chaos — and he is already being pulled into the battle.

The arcane disputes on constitutionality, quorum, discharge petitions, procedural rules, and hardball tactics from leadership appeared to — understandably — be extremely low on the president’s priority list. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday she had not talked to Trump about the issue.

If he didn’t know about it before, he does now. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla), who is leading the GOP rebels as she advocates for parental proxy voting, said on NewsNation Wednesday night that she had talked to the president about the matter.

“The President assured that this would get resolved,” Luna said, arguing that she and the eight other Republicans who voted with her are not blocking Trump’s agenda, since leadership could tee up legislation on judges and proof of citizenship to vote without killing her proxy voting push.

The fact is, though, that the GOP dispute is derailing Trump-supported bills and could hold up the House floor indefinitely. Other Republicans are threatening to block any procedural rules to tee up other business until Luna’s push is squashed, according to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).

The clash has now broken out of legislative procedure-nerd circles and into the broader sphere — with Trump allies like Cleta Mitchell, the elections reform activist was central in Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, chiming in on X to scold Luna for being “self-centered.”

It seems that the only thing that has reliably held the fractious, razor-thin House Republican majority together........

© The Hill