At least 13 House Republicans filed the paperwork for colleagues to vote on the COVID-19 relief bill on Friday night, citing the ongoing pandemic. However, they must also speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida.
Republican representatives Madison Cawthorn and Ted Budd of North Carolina, Matt Gaetz and Greg Steube of Florida, Paul Gosar of Arizona, Mark Green of Tennessee, Devin Nunes of California, Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, Darrell Issa of California, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Jim Banks of Indiana and Ronny Jackson of Texas, filed the paperwork with the House clerk this week, stating, “I cannot physically attend the proceedings in the House due to the ongoing public health emergency.”
Cawthorn, Budd, Gaetz and Steube were scheduled to speak at the conservative meeting on Friday, while the others are scheduled to comment on Saturday and Sunday.
In a statement, a spokesman for Budd said: “After Democrats reorganized the House’s schedule with extremely late notice, Rep. Budd was forced to vote by proxy for the first time. Rep. Budd remains philosophically opposed to voting. by proxy, which is why he has already donated his salary to Congress on the days he voted by proxy at the North Carolina Restaurant Workers Relief Fund to support restaurants that were closed during the pandemic. in the letter is the standard language that both parties must use to represent voting. ”
In May 2020, he introduced a bill entitled “Proxy Payment Prohibited Voting Law”.
At least four Democrats are also having their colleagues vote for the COVID-19 relief package. Texas representatives Sheila Jackson Lee, Al Green, Lizzie Fletcher and Sylvia Garcia appointed prosecutors while meeting President Biden in Texas on Friday during his trip to examine the damage from recent snowstorms.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi implemented proxy voting in May 2020 to give House members a way to vote, avoiding trips that could expose them to COVID-19 during the pandemic. Since then, she has extended proxy voting several times.
The move drew criticism from Republicans, especially after Florida Democrats Charlie Crist and Darren Soto filled out proxy letters citing the health emergency and were later found participating in the launch of the SpaceX rocket in their home states.
Before being elected, Cawthorn tweeted, “Leaders show up, no matter how uncertain the times are. Democrats are cowards for hiding and not showing up for work. I think we can label them as ‘non-essential staff’?”
Jonathan Wilcox, a spokesman for Issa, said the California Republican “complied with all House voting rules in presenting his opposition to what Democrats labeled COVID relief, but that he devoted more than 90% of his total to spending non-COVID.
“After summarily rejecting hundreds of attempts by Republicans to seek the bipartisan consensus of previous COVID legislation, it is clear that Democrats do not want solutions. Only partisanship,” said Wilcox.
GOP Whip Steve Scalise, of Louisiana, accused members of using proxy voting to “kill homesickness.”
“They claimed that they were unable to attend work ‘due to the public health emergency’ – but then they went to see the rocket launch. This is not Ferris Bueller’s Day off. It is the United States Congress,” he wrote on Twitter.
A Scalise spokesman confirmed that he canceled his speech at the conference because of Friday night’s polls.
Kimberly Brown contributed to this story