#Proxy voting

[political-us]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Emily Singer at Daily Kos:

House Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republican leaders are trying to kill a push by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida to give new mothers in Congress the ability to vote by proxy as they recover from childbirth and bond with their newborns. Luna has the votes to pass the bipartisan legislation, which the Republican is co-sponsoring alongside Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) and Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-CO)—a new mother who has had to travel to Washington, D.C., multiple times with her infant child to avoid missing critical votes. But Politico reported that Johnson and other GOP leaders are trying to find a way to stop it from passing by bullying Republican members and even possibly changing the rules to block Luna's legislation from making it to the floor for a vote. [...] The discharge petition that could force a vote on the bill has 218 signatures from members of both parties, signaling its wide support. But Johnson claims he doesn't support the legislation because he believes proxy voting is unconstitutional, and allowing new mothers the opportunity to vote by proxy after giving birth is a “slippery slope” to allowing more groups the ability to proxy vote, like members who have to care for sick spouses or children—as if that’s such an awful thing. 

[...] More likely than not, Johnson’s opposition to proxy voting for new mothers is due to his party’s extremely narrow House majority. Absences from Democratic lawmakers like Pettersen could help him pass partisan legislation with more breathing room. But the optics of this are terrible for the GOP—and even Republicans are admitting it.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA)’s opposition to proxy voting for new mothers in Congress is an attack on motherhood.

[onlytiktoks]

[leupagus]

Tuesday's House Budget Vote and what you may not have heard about

I'm reposting this from a reblog of a really great post about the work that Representatives Mullin and Pettersen did in voting against the GOP budget on February 25th, because I don't want to detract from that message.

Instead, I want to talk about the larger implications of H. Con. Res. 14 itself, and why the Democrats risked so much (in Mullin's and Pettersen's cases, actual harm) in order to show up for this vote.

The vote in question is starting the first of quite a few votes for the upcoming GOP budget; it's not a done deal by any means, this was just the vote to get it started, so to speak. But it was still a very, very, VERY important vote, because not only would failure be catastrophic, but so would a win that just barely squeaked by.

And this one squeaked like a fucking mouse in Murray's Cheese Shop.

Speaker Johnson has been waffling on putting this to a vote because there were several outspoken GOP members who talked a big game about opposing it. Usually this doesn't matter, since most bills get some bipartisanship, but at present the House is in GOP hands with only a three-member margin of error, with two seats vacant (note: those two vacancies are FL 1 and 6, which are holding their special elections on April 1 — lol — and which are EXTREMELY unlikely to flip but hey miracles happen! Donate or phonebank if you'd like!). And Democratic representatives have been voting in a bloc against...well pretty much everything the GOP's been pushing through since Trump took office. Not only that, but this budget is legit unpopular with a number of Republicans, so much so that Johnson pulled the vote at first on Tuesday because he knew it would fail if the GOP members who'd threatened to vote against it actually went through with it. What he needed was to either convince them all to fall in line, or resort to cheating.

So he did both!

He and Trump strongarmed all but one of the GOP holdouts into voting yes (Congressman Massie is in many ways a turd in a toilet, and his reasons for voting no were bad, but he did stick to his guns, I'll give him that). Reports of Trump actually screaming at one of the (female, naturally) GOP holdouts are...well, unsurprising, but that's how panicked they were about getting this bill started. Usually the Whip does this work, but Tom Emmer's been laughably bad at it and so they had to get Trump to actually do some work. Which is itself sort of astonishing. But even then, they weren't sure they could get it done.

Which leads us to part two of Johnson's plan: blatant cheating. During Pelosi's last session as Speaker, she allowed for proxy voting in light of COVID and, you know, the general state of things, but the second the GOP got back the gavel they nixed it right in the bud. This puts the Dems at a disadvantage right now because at least three of them are out for medical reasons — Mullin and Pettersen, as well as Congressman Raúl Grijalva who's fighting cancer at present. (He was the only Democrat who couldn't get to the floor for this vote, fwiw, and anyone who insists he should've can suck my left tit.)

So Johnson adjourned the House for the evening, sending everyone home, but told the GOP members to stay and then tried to rush through the vote before the Dems realized what was happening. His hope was that enough Dems would be caught flat-footed/not see the recall notice/be asleep watching Taskmaster (whoops that was me) by the time they got the message to get back to the floor. That way he could lose the holdouts but still pass the budget onto the next phase.

However! While Nancy Pelosi no longer rules the Democratic caucus with her iron fist and fabulous coats, my man Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries learned quite a lot from her (and is pretty fucking genius himself). Not only did he and the other House leadership expect this kind of chicanery from Johnson, they had planned on it.

Because here's the thing: Mullin and Pettersen didn't get on a plane at the last minute on Tuesday; they'd gotten to DC on Monday, without telling anyone they were in town. They actually hid from the GOP members all day Tuesday in order to lull Johnson into thinking he had more of a margin than he did; if the GOP holdouts really had voted against the budget, then it would've failed. Which would have been a biiiiiiig problem for Johnson and Trump.

As it is, it's still a biiiiiiig problem for Johnson and Trump, because now they know just how razor-thin their margin is. More importantly, they also now know that the Dems will fuck with them just as much (if not more) as they will fuck with Dems. Congress (and the USA in general) has operated for years on the assumption that Democrats operate in good faith, while taking it for granted that of course the GOP ratfuck as much as humanly possible.

This moment is a chilling one for the GOP; they can't assume anymore that Dems will play fair or fight clean. Which seems like a very small thing in the larger picture right now, I know, and I also know that people would love for their Democratic representatives and senators to be more vocal and angry in public ways. I get that!

But this move on Tuesday night? Is actually going to have far bigger consequences than any meme or viral video or clever soundbite from a politician. Democrats are no longer playing by the rules that the GOP's ignored for years (if not decades); they're playing by the GOP's own rules, and they just might win.

[global-insights]

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[khihi]

if the tories win i'm staying in finland you can't make me go back to that place

[smallblueandloud]

WIP poll meme! i was tagged by @paperairplanesopenwindows -- thank you sara!

rules: make a 24 hour poll listing the titles of every WIP you want to work on. (it’s fine if you only have one, still make a poll for the vote count). whichever WIP title gets the most votes, write 1 sentence for every vote received.

i know i don't have free time for another ~24 hours guys but once i do it is ON SIGHT for some of these. i can't wait!!

tagging @aethersea, @tanoraqui, @nereb-and-dungalef, @arithmonym, @theclaravoyant, and @florchis! i would love to see what you guys are up to :D

[frereamour]

when cmbyn came out people would straight up try to kill you if you said you didn't think the age difference between elio and that guy was a big deal

[roundearthsociety]

As yall know I love electoralism, huge fan. Which is why I just voted twice in the French general election, bc I just love voting that much 👍

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Daniella Diaz, Katherine Swartz, and Reese Gorman at NOTUS:

After nine Republicans joined all Democrats to tank a procedural vote Tuesday afternoon, Speaker Mike Johnson had a novel solution: everyone go home. “We can’t have any further action on the floor this week,” Johnson told reporters after a rule, which would have killed a discharge petition from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna to allow new parents to vote remotely for 12 weeks, failed 206-222. “It was very unfortunate,” a visibly frustrated Johnson said as he left the House chamber. “We’ll regroup and come back and we’ll have to do this again.” Of course, Johnson’s declaration that there can’t be any more action in the House this week is his choice. Republicans could have just as easily gone back to the Rules Committee, stripped the language tabling the discharge petition from the rule setting up consideration for a number of bills and almost certainly gotten back to work. But that also would have meant, in effect, admitting defeat on Luna’s proposal, which garnered 218 signatures last week and is due for a floor vote. The whole situation — Republicans trying to subvert a clear majority that wants to give new parents the temporary ability to vote remotely, losing a rule vote on the floor and packing it up and going home — earned quick ridicule from Democrats. [...] House GOP leaders are publicly projecting confidence that, when the House returns Monday, Republicans can defeat Luna’s discharge petition, even after the embarrassing failure on the House floor.

Leaders are mulling over several options to kill the proposal next week, including reportedly just adding a budget, freshly amended by the Senate, to the slate of legislation that the rule would set up for floor consideration. But leaders are also clear-eyed that it’s not just the nine Republicans who took down this rule that they will have to deal with. From here on out, any rule that does not include language to kill Luna’s petition will likely fail at the hands of conservatives who oppose proxy voting. So, the plan is to include similar language killing the discharge petition, in each rule from here on out, until they are successful, a source told NOTUS.

Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) ragequits after losing a floor vote to tank Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL)'s discharge petition to allow new parents to vote remotely for 12 weeks by ending the work week early.

[rjkingofdirewolwes]

Satisfactions on Reddit

This are the things that makes me want to keep writing. If there are any other fan writers here who are struggling with recognition, don't lose hope, you will get your fanbase. And if you belong to the LBGT community, also keep writing for everyone who is uncertain in these weeks, they'll find some solace in your work.

[poolboyservice]

ok but who the fuck in the system decided it'd be okay or even beneficial to put the persecutor (me) as the host????

i don't get it, i really don't. i know every alter has a use and every alter is the way they are for a reason but i've genuinely been pondering and searching for the past 2 months and like?? i still don't know why am i the host !!! does the brain WANT the body to die?? because that's how you get the body to die 😭 how is this gonna help us survive anything

[ipswichtowns]

of course the election is gonna take place one (1) day before i get back to the uk... time to work out how to vote from another country i guess :/

[sparkys-ec-corner]

*looks at that poll* Why must we set two bad bitches up against each other!?

A CRIME!! A CRIME, I SAY!!! SAY SIKE!!!! THIS WAS SET UP FOR FAILURE ON AMOSTIA'S SIDE!!

[gothyanki]

On the subject of voting - I got my proxy vote application in for 4th July (UK snap election time!)