As the virus recedes and most members of Congress are vaccinated, critics say some members of Congress are abusing a public health policy for personal convenience, politics or other family matters.
"Graph the number of proxies, and look at how they increase exponentially on Fridays," said Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., one of the most."It's incentivizing the worst behavior among members, which is to say prioritizing fundraising and deprioritizing legislating."
"I think it's a bad thing; personally, I don't think we need to be doing it at this point," said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., who has criticized proxy voting but also used it."It's in the rules. You can use it." Democrats have voted by proxy more often than Republicans, according to data tabulated by Reynolds at the Brookings Institution. Sometimes for reasons clearly related to COVID-19, but sometimes for reasons that are less clear, she told ABC News.
Members of both parties have used remote voting while caring for a sick or dying parent, or when flight delays have kept them stranded far from Washington. Each time, however, they officially attested to the Clerk that the"ongoing public health emergency" kept them from being unable to attend. "The original purpose was just for people who either, where it just wasn't safe to fly or they had some preexisting condition, including being too old," Beyer said."Now, when people start going to conferences or something, that's a little different."Rep. Donald Beyer, D-Va., regularly casts votes for Democratic colleagues who cannot physically attend House proceedings. He says it's about time to end the practice.
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