House rules chair recommends letting lawmakers vote by proxy amid pandemic

The chair of the House Rules Committee has unveiled a proposed permitting voting by proxy amid the coronavirus pandemic.

House Rules Committee Chair Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) on Thursday announced he's recommending temporarily letting lawmakers who are "unable to travel to Washington due to the pandemic" provide "specific instructions for each vote to a fellow member who has been authorized to cast those votes on their behalf." Many lawmakers have been calling for some form of remote voting to be implemented to avoid having members of Congress travel or gather together during the pandemic.

House members, McGovern said, would need to be given "exact direction" on how to vote every time, so "there would be no ability to give a general proxy." Republicans would need to back the rule change by unanimous consent or a voice vote to avoid having all members vote on it in person, The Hill reports.

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"We should not wait for this pandemic to end to make changes to the rules that help us to do our jobs in such an unprecedented time," McGovern said.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) previously told The Hill he didn't think proxy voting is "healthy" because "it puts too much power in one hand." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) also said earlier this month remote voting presents "serious constitutional, technological and security concerns."

McGovern's vote-by-proxy idea, CNN noted, was something of a "middle ground" between not changing the rules at all and changing them to allow for voting remotely using video technology. McGovern argued his vote-by-proxy proposal would be preferable because it wouldn't rely on "the kind of technology that is susceptible to hacking or interference by foreign bad actors."