Speaker Johnson cuts deal with Rep. Luna over parental proxy voting

Speaker Mike Johnson and Florida GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna say they have cut a deal to end the fight over proxy voting for new parents, which would reopen the House floor after nearly a week of legislative paralysis.

But a key Democrat who joined with Luna to press to make proxy voting available on Monday criticized the GOP-brokered deal as inadequate.

House Republican leaders agree to formalize "vote pairing," a procedure that would allow a member who is absent during a vote to coordinate with a present member on the other side of the matter to offset the absence, multiple sources familiar with the deal told ABC News.

For example, the procedure in this case would allow a new mother, who is absent for a House vote, to team up with a present lawmaker voting opposite from their stance to form a "pair."

Some logistics of this deal remain unclear including how this will be enforced.

Vote pairing -- a rare practice in Congress -- is certainly not an equivalent to remote voting but allows for an absence to be offset. But the absent member's vote is not recorded into the tally of a recorded vote.

The vote pairing process was used in 2018 when the Senate voted to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. At the time, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who said she would vote against Kavanaugh, paired her vote with Sen. Steve Daines' of Montana so their votes would cancel out.

Johnson laid out the specifics of the agreement on a GOP member conference call Sunday afternoon, sources said.

In light of the deal, sources said Luna will not trigger her bipartisan discharge petition -- which has 218 signatures -- to allow mothers and fathers to vote remotely for up to 12 weeks after childbirth.

"Speaker Johnson and I have reached an agreement and are formalizing a procedure called 'live/dead pairing'—dating back to the 1800s—for the entire conference to use when unable to physically be present to vote: new parents, bereaved, emergencies," Rep. Luna posted in a statement on X.

Luna thanked President Donald Trump for his "support" of new mothers. "If we truly want a pro-family Congress, these are the changes that need to happen," she added.

It is possible for other members -- including any Democrat who signed the petition -- to call up and force action on Luna's measure. But it would likely fail if Republicans stick to the vote pairing agreement.

Johnson is still looking at ways to increase accessibility for new mothers in Congress like adding a room off the House floor for nursing mothers, sources said.

House Democrats, meanwhile, who locked arms with Luna last week, on Monday criticized the agreement Republicans reached -- maintaining that it "fails to provide real solutions" for lawmakers who are new parents.

Rep. Brittany Pettersen said she is "grateful" to Luna for championing the issue that matters "but the reality is -- this outcome does not address the barriers we've fought so hard to overcome."

The blowback likely signals an uphill climb for Luna and Republicans to identify Democrats to offset a GOP absence -- creating an impractical path forward for lawmakers under the "pairing" scheme.

"Instead of letting us vote, he has instead gone to historic lengths to kill our resolution and make sure the large majority of his Members don't have a voice," Pettersen, D-Colo., wrote in a statement Monday afternoon. "Let's be clear: these changes are not a win for us and Speaker Johnson has turned his back on moms and dads in Congress and working families."

Pettersen says the fight is "far from over," while Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., agreed that the deal "falls short" of their goal -- though she also pledged to "keep pushing."

"I won't accept the way Congress has always done things, and the American people won't either," Jacobs stated. "We will keep pushing for innovative ways to support young people and parents in Congress – including by modernizing how we vote – even if it takes a Democratic majority to do so."

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries also refused to endorse the pairing gambit -- signaling he'd take first take the temperature of his caucus members who have led the discussion before publicly commenting.