- More than a dozen Republican Party members voted by proxy while speaking at a major conservative conference.
- All of his power of attorney notices cited the “continuing public health emergency”.
- A group of Republican Party lawmakers sued the proxy system in 2020.
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More than a dozen members of Congress speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, this weekend designated other members to vote on their behalf while they were away, citing the COVID-19 pandemic.
Active proxy letters filed with the House of Representatives clerk show that 13 Republican Party representatives who spoke on Friday or are scheduled to speak on Saturday or Sunday have appointed attorneys to vote on their behalf.
In all proxy letters, first reported by CNN, members scheduled to speak at the CPAC in Orlando, Florida, all attest that they are “unable to physically attend City Hall proceedings due to the ongoing public health emergency” .
Members include high-profile Republicans, such as Reps. Devin Nuñes and Darrel Issa of California, Reps. Greg Steube and Matt Gaetz of Florida, Rep. Jim Banks of California and Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina.
Notably, the U.S. House is expected to vote on the American Rescue Act, President Joe Biden’s $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus aid package, on Friday night.
The proxy voting process, designated in Resolution 8 of the Chamber, was created at the beginning of the pandemic primarily to allow members who were sick with COVID-19, quarantined after exposure to COVID-19, or unable to travel, to be able to travel. vote through a current colleague.
Some of the Republicans who asked to vote by proxy had already criticized the system for giving Congress permission to not work.
North Carolina MP Ted Budd, who spoke at the CPAC on Friday and appointed a colleague to be his attorney, had previously criticized the proxy vote as “unconstitutional and wrong” and even introduced an item of legislation, the Law of Polling Without Payment by Proxy, which would have removed payment from legislators who used the proxy system.
“After the Democrats reorganized the House’s schedule with extremely late notice, Rep. Budd was forced to vote by proxy for the first time,” Budd’s office said in a statement to ABC News. “Mr Budd remains philosophically opposed to proxy voting, which is why he has already donated his salary to Congress for the days he voted for the North Carolina Restaurant Workers Relief Fund to support restaurants that were closed during the pandemic.”
The minority leader in the House, Congressman Kevin McCarthy and a group of Republicans in the House, also filed a lawsuit in the federal court challenging the power of attorney system as unconstitutional.
A federal judge in Washington, DC dismissed the lawsuit in August 2020, concluding that the courts have no legitimacy to decide on the internal functions of Congress protected by the speech and debate clause. Republicans subsequently appealed the case to the United States Court of Appeals on the DC Circuit.