House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell engaged in a public clash Thursday over a new rule allowing House lawmakers to vote without being present in the chamber.
Pelosi accused McConnell of making “deliberately misleading” comments in a floor speech earlier in the day when the Kentucky Republican said the new rule authorizing the House to establish a quorum by proxy would prove to be unconstitutional.
“Simply and sadly, he is trying to find every excuse not to meet the needs of the American people,” Pelosi said, a reference to McConnell’s refusal to take up a House-passed $3 trillion coronavirus relief package supported almost exclusively by Democrats.
McConnell delivered a floor speech Thursday attacking the proxy voting plan in the House. He called into question whether the House can establish a quorum if it counts those who vote remotely, which is permitted under the new House rule.
“The Constitution requires a physical quorum to do business,” McConnell said. “The new rule says one person may mark himself and ten others present, even if they are nowhere in sight.”
He called such a quorum “a flat-out lie.”
A recent report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service found that House-approved virtual voting may meet constitutional requirements, but the designation of a virtual quorum could be challenged in court if the judiciary decides to intervene.
“The question of judicial review is an important one,” the CRS reported in April, “as the answer could determine whether it is the courts or the individual houses of Congress that are empowered to issue a final and presumably dispositive interpretation of the quorum requirement.”
The House voted along party lines last Friday to allow each lawmaker present in the House chamber to vote for up to 10 absent colleagues. Democrats ushered in the change in response to the coronavirus and a desire to avoid having 431 lawmakers fly back and forth to Washington, D.C., and crowd into the Capitol.
The Senate returned to regular session in early May. The House has held two short sessions since mid-March.
McConnell criticized the House on Thursday for abandoning live sessions for a virtual Congress. House lawmakers also plan to hold committee meetings and committee votes remotely for the next 45 days.
“While essential workers across the country continue to clock in, the Democratic House of Representatives has essentially put itself on paid leave for months,” McConnell said.
Pelosi in Thursday’s statement defended the move and pointed out that the Senate permits proxy voting in committees.
The Constitution authorizes each chamber to determine its own rules, the California Democrat added.
“Last week, the House voted to institute measures ensuring that Congress can continue to meet the needs of families and workers during the unprecedented challenge of the coronavirus, including with remote voting by proxy,” Pelosi said. “Remote voting by proxy is fully consistent with the Constitution and more than a century of legal precedent, including Supreme Court cases, that make clear that the House can determine its own rules.
