She Rushed to DC With Newborn for House Vote

A Democratic lawmaker who voted with a weeks-old baby in her arms this week is pushing to change the rules on proxy voting in the House. Rep. Brittany Pettersen flew from Colorado to Washington, DC, with her four-week-old son for Tuesday night's vote on a budget resolution. "Unfortunately, I wasn't given the opportunity to vote remotely after giving birth," she said, per NBC Washington. "But I wasn't going to let that stop me from being here to represent my constituents." Pettersen is the 13th voting member of Congress to give birth while in office, reports the New York Times.

Pettersen introduced legislation last month to allow remote voting for lawmakers who have "given birth or whose spouse have given birth and pregnant members who are unable to travel safely or have a serious medical condition," the BBC reports. Remote voting was temporarily allowed during the pandemic. "This job is not made for young women, for working families, and it's definitely not made for regular people," she said, per the Times. "It's historically been wealthy individuals who are not of childbearing age who do this work." The measure is supported by some Republicans, including Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who was advised not to travel after a difficult birth in Florida in 2023 and missed 137 votes.

"How is it not discriminatory to tell a duly elected member of Congress that she can't vote because she gave birth to a child?" Luna said last month. House Speaker Mike Johnson said the situation for new mothers is a "real quandary," but the "inescapable truth" is that proxy voting "doesn't fit with the language of the Constitution." The Washington Post reports that Democrats "urgently summoned" absent lawmakers to the capital for Tuesday's vote, but the GOP-supported budget resolution passed in a 217-215 vote. Democratic Rep. Kevin Mullin, who recently had knee surgery, was still hooked to an IV when he flew in from California. (More Congress stories.)