How a fight over proxy voting for new parents upended the US House

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How a fight over proxy voting for new parents upended the US House

2025-04-12 13:31 Last Updated At：13:41

WASHINGTON (AP) — Anna Paulina Luna was at her Florida home in fall 2023, caring for her newborn son and turning over a question in her mind as a member of Congress:

“How do I change this?”

Luna, then a first-time mom and first-term lawmaker, could no longer fly to Washington to cast votes in the U.S. House, a crucial part of the job, due to complications from childbirth — which she blamed at least partially on her hectic schedule, having flown to and from the capital during most of her pregnancy.

Luna began reading House rules and found what seemed like a simple solution: allowing proxy voting for new moms.

What Luna considered a minor rule change, affecting just a few — only about a dozen women had given birth while serving in Congress — over time escalated into a standoff against her own Republican leadership and her allies in the hard-right Freedom Caucus.

In a matter of months, it became a highly charged debate that crossed party lines, united a younger generation of lawmakers and raised fresh questions about how a more than 200-year-old institution accommodates working parents in the 21st century. The conflict turned on weighty history and thorny procedures, highlighting the difficulties of abiding by documents and rules written long before air travel and Zoom screens — and long before women served in Congress.

“When the Constitution was written, this was not really a topic,” Luna said.

When Luna was about to become a new mom, planning for the big change ahead, she asked then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy how she would be able to vote in the days after giving birth. That was 2023, and she didn’t realize she was stepping on a political landmine.

At the start of the pandemic, more than two years before Luna was elected, Democrats in the majority had created a proxy voting system to contain COVID-19 and avoid overcrowding in the chamber.

McCarthy had called the practice “ a dereliction of duty,” an excuse for members to skip out on work, and the resolution creating the system passed without a single Republican vote.

When Republicans won the House majority in 2022, McCarthy abandoned proxy voting — and for a time, there was no talk of bringing it back.

Once Luna was cleared to fly and returned to Washington, she kept the proxy voting proposal to herself. It wasn’t the right time: The House was in turmoil, having just ousted McCarthy from the speaker’s job and choosing Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana as his replacement.

But a few months later, Luna made her move.

She introduced a bill in January 2024 that would allow a mother to designate a proxy for six weeks, but by autumn, her legislation had gone nowhere, languishing in committee. Luna decided to launch a discharge petition — a workaround that allows legislation with 218 supporters to force a vote on the House floor. But she got just a handful of signatures.

“I went through every and exhausted every avenue,” Luna said.

Then she turned to Democrats, drafting a new proposal this year with Reps. Brittany Pettersen of Colorado and Sara Jacobs of California that would extend proxy voting to not just moms but all new parents for 12 weeks, double the time Luna had initially proposed.

Pettersen, who was previously the first member of the Colorado legislature to give birth and take leave, said she “came to Congress wanting to work on this.”

In a matter of months, Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York, a father to two young girls, became the 218th member to sign the discharge petition, the tally needed to force a vote.

But only a dozen signatures came from Republicans.

Pushback was fierce, from members of the Freedom Caucus and from the speaker himself. Johnson repeatedly called proxy voting “unconstitutional.” Herself among the more far-right conservatives in the House, her desk adorned with a model of President Donald Trump on Mount Rushmore, Luna resigned from the Freedom Caucus, accusing them of working against her.

Luna felt that she had done everything she could to address Johnson’s concerns. She agreed that members had abused the practice in the past, but said her proposal included “guard rails.”

Johnson tried to snuff out Luna’s discharge petition with a rare legislative maneuver, linking it to a vote that was needed to advance one of the GOP priorities, a voter ID bill.

The aggressive move angered several Republicans, including some who didn’t even support Luna’s proposal. Johnson's gambit failed on the floor.

Johnson called the outcome “unfortunate” and reiterated the argument that proxy voting for moms was a “Pandora’s box” that would open the door for members who’d rather not show up to work. Then he sent lawmakers home for the week.

That’s when Luna had a talk with Trump.

“I think she’s great, Anna,” Trump said aboard Air Force One.

The president recalled that he had spoken to her the previous day. When it came to proxy voting, Trump wondered why the idea was “controversial.”

Johnson sprang into action and quickly posted on social media that he had also spoken with Trump, quoting him saying, “Mike, you have my proxy on proxy voting.”

Meanwhile, a political storm was brewing against Luna. Right-wing influencers flooded Twitter to accuse Luna of holding up Trump’s agenda as House floor action stalled. She faced attacks from fellow Republicans.

On a Sunday afternoon this month, Luna announced that she and leadership had reached an agreement.

They would resurrect a well-worn congressional procedure that “pairs” two members of Congress who plan to vote on opposite sides of an issue, canceling out their votes — a way to accommodate the absent member.

“If we truly want a pro-family Congress, these are the changes that need to happen,” Luna posted on X.

The plan was quickly tucked into an upcoming procedural vote. This time, it succeeded.

Reviews were mixed.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., called the solution “bizarre” and said it was unlikely any member would voluntarily participate, essentially nulling their own vote, when the margins were so narrow in Congress.

But GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, a member of the Freedom Caucus who opposes all proxy voting, said he would consider participating in pairing.

“We want to make it to where people can, you know, deal with whatever life curveballs they get,” Roy said.

Not everyone, though, is satisfied.

The day that Congress voted on vote-pairing, Pettersen stood outside the House chamber, cradling her son in her arms. “What Republican would be willing to vote present for me this week?” she asked. “Nobody.”

UK's top court says definition of a woman is based on biological sex and excludes transgender people

2025-04-16 19:38 Last Updated At：19:40

LONDON (AP) — The U.K. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a woman is someone born biologically female, excluding transgender people from the legal definition in a long-running dispute between a feminist group and the Scottish government.

Several women's groups that supported the appeal celebrated outside court and hailed it as a major victory in their effort to protect spaces designated for women.

“Everyone knows what sex is and you can’t change it,” said Susan Smith, co-director of For Women Scotland, which brought the case. “It’s common sense, basic common sense and the fact that we have been down a rabbit hole where people have tried to deny science and to deny reality and hopefully this will now see us back to, back to reality.”

The ruling brings some clarity in the U.K. to a controversial issue that has roiled politics as women, parents, LGBTQ+ groups, lawmakers and athletes have debated gender identity rights.

Five judges ruled unanimously that the U.K. Equality Act means trans women can be excluded from some single-sex spaces and groups, such as changing rooms, homeless shelters, swimming areas and medical or counseling services provided only to women.

The ruling means that a transgender person with a certificate that recognizes them as female should not be considered a woman for equality purposes.

But Justice Patrick Hodge said its ruling “does not remove protection from trans people,” who are “protected from discrimination on the ground of gender reassignment.”

The case stems from a 2018 law passed by the Scottish Parliament stating there should be a 50% female representation on the boards of Scottish public bodies. Transgender women with gender recognition certificates were to be included in meeting the quota.

“Interpreting ‘sex’ as certificated sex would cut across the definitions of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ ... and, thus, the protected characteristic of sex in an incoherent way,” Hodge said. “It would create heterogeneous groupings.”

Hannah Ford, an employment lawyer, said that while the judgment will provide clarity, it would be a setback for transgender rights and there would be “an uphill battle” to ensure workplaces are welcoming places for trans people.

“This will be really wounding for the trans community,” Ford told Sky News.

Groups that had challenged the Scottish government popped the cork on a bottle of champagne outside the court and sang, “women’s rights are human rights.”

“The court has given us the right answer: the protected characteristic of sex — male and female — refers to reality, not to paperwork," said Maya Forstater of the group Sex Matters. In 2022, an employment tribunal ruled that she had been the victim of discrimination when she lost out on a job after posting gender-critical views online.

The British government welcomed the ruling, saying it would provide clarity and confidence for women.

“Single-sex spaces are protected in law and will always be protected by this government,” it said.

For Women Scotland had argued that the Scottish officials' redefinition of woman went beyond Parliament’s powers. But Scottish officials then issued new guidance stating that the definition of woman included someone with a gender recognition certificate.

FWS successfully sought to overturn that.

“Not tying the definition of sex to its ordinary meaning means that public boards could conceivably comprise of 50% men, and 50% men with certificates, yet still lawfully meet the targets for female representation,” the group’s director Trina Budge said previously.

The challenge was rejected by a court in 2022, but the group was granted permission last year to take its case to the Supreme Court.

Aidan O’Neill, a lawyer for FWS, told the Supreme Court judges — three men and two women — that under the Equality Act “sex” should refer to biological sex and as understood “in ordinary, everyday language.”

“Our position is your sex, whether you are a man or a woman or a girl or a boy is determined from conception in utero, even before one’s birth, by one’s body,” he said. “It is an expression of one’s bodily reality. It is an immutable biological state.”

The women’s right group counted among its supporters author J.K. Rowling, who reportedly donated tens of thousands of pounds to back its work. The “Harry Potter” writer has been vocal in arguing that the rights for trans women should not come at the expense of those who are born biologically female.

Opponents, including Amnesty International, said excluding transgender people from sex discrimination protections conflicted with human rights laws.

Amnesty submitted a brief in court saying it was concerned about the deterioration of the rights for trans people in the U.K. and abroad.

“A blanket policy of barring trans women from single-sex services is not a proportionate means to achieve a legitimate aim,” the human rights group said.