Representative Brittany Pettersen: I Can’t Do My Job in Congress Because I’m About to Have a Baby

Through this process, I’ve heard stories from dads too. Some who had their newborns in the NICU and were unable to be there. They were in Washington for votes and didn’t have that time with their family. [Republican] Representative Mike Lawler, who is one of our co-leads on this, had a baby right before the election and then had to immediately start coming back to Washington. He was unable to be there in the ways that he wanted when he was welcoming his new baby. What gives me hope about the work we do is when we get to know each other as people, and we listen to each other and understand where we’re coming from. We get to know each other as individuals, so we’re much more willing to come to the table and work on things together and find common ground.

An unlikely ally on this is [Republican Representative] Anna Paulina Luna. She’s a very different political stripe than me, and we’re working together on this issue. I’m hopeful that we might actually get it done if we can find common ground. There’s so much more that brings us together. It’s just unnecessary how toxic things have become at the federal level.

What we have is a resolution to change the House rules. It’s what governs our body, and it’s not a privileged resolution, so it doesn’t come up for a floor vote unless it’s brought up for a floor vote by leadership. This isn’t going through the process of a bill that has to pass the House and the Senate and be signed by a president. We just have to pass it in the House. We just need leadership to support it, and we have overwhelming support in the body. We know that in the House we have the votes to pass this, but unfortunately we are not getting the support from Republican leadership right now.

An avenue that we have to force a vote is called a discharge petition. If we get 218 signatures, which is a majority of the House, it can force a vote on the floor. This is highly unlikely for anything to pass, because you’re kind of challenging your own leadership. It’s why people are hesitant to ever sign on even if they agree. But we’ve found many people who want to sign on to this because they believe that it’s common sense and the right thing to do.

So we’ve continued to beat the drum by sending bipartisan letters to the House speaker and asking him to include it in the rules package so that we don’t have to go through this. Then we brought the resolution, and then we have the opportunity to bring the discharge petition in 30 legislative days. That’s the lever that we’re going to pull if the speaker ultimately does not let us vote on the House floor.

The speaker [Mike Johnson] continues to say that proxy voting is unconstitutional, but every court challenge for it has been upheld. We also used proxy voting during COVID. He could still vote no, but let us vote on the floor. That’s all we’re asking. It’s outdated rules, and it’s outdated mindsets. It’s the people who so often say, “This is how we’ve always done things and this is how we’re going to continue to do them.” Sometimes it takes young members like myself and my bipartisan coalition of younger members who are parents to shake things up.