Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Proxy voting in House will likely be extended until the end of the year

Nancy Pelosi

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to again extend this use of proxy voting, possibly until the end of the year.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

At the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the House of Representatives adopted a new rule allowing members, for the first time, to cast votes remotely via a proxy.

Now, with the Delta variant on the rise, Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to extend the use of proxy voting through the fall, and possibly until the end of the year, Axios first reported.

Although not without its criticisms, this procedural change has kept congressional operations afloat at a time when it's been unsafe for members to convene in person.


During the public health emergency, proxy voting allows House members who are unable to vote in person to designate a colleague to record an in-person vote for them, under strict instructions. A member may vote on behalf of up to 10 of their colleagues. The procedural change also allows hearings to be conducted virtually.

This emergency measure was first enacted in May 2020 and has been extended every few months since as the pandemic has persisted. The latest extension is set to expire Aug. 17. Currently, 126 House members have active proxy orders in place.

When proxy voting was first adopted, however, GOP House members sharply criticized its use, filing a federal lawsuit that claimed the voting method was unconstitutional. The suit was ultimately dismissed in August 2020.

More recently, however, proxy voting has become a tool of convenience for both Republicans and Democrats. With most members of Congress vaccinated, lawmakers are now using remote voting to spend more time in their districts, attending campaign events and avoiding a long commute to Washington.

To prevent proxy voting from being misused in this way, Marci Harris, CEO of the nonpartisan civic engagement platform Popvox, said clear guidelines need to be set around how members should use remote voting.

"That abuse — and the failure of the House to hold members who violate the rules to account — dilutes the important continuity function that proxy voting (or other forms of remote voting) serves," Harris said.

Proxy voting has been an important tool for Congress during the pandemic, and it should continue to be considered for future emergency situations, Harris added. Last year, in the early days of the pandemic, her organization participated in mock remote hearing exercises to test the viability of virtual congressional proceedings during the pandemic. The exercises were successful and overwhelmingly supported by the former members of Congress, from both parties, who participated.

Moving forward, expansions to proxy voting should be considered, said Daniel Schuman, policy director at Demand Progress, another organization that participated in the exercises. For instance, he would also like to see the Senate adopt some form of remote voting.

But at the very least, Schuman said, while there is still a public health crisis, the current system should remain in place so that members who are immunocompromised or have young children can continue to safely vote on legislation.

"Proxy voting has allowed the Congress to stay open in a circumstance where they wouldn't have necessarily been able to do as much otherwise," Schuman said. "Every single American deserves to have representation in Congress, and this is a mechanism to ensure that everybody's representative who is mentally capable of participating is able to do so themselves."

Read More

A child looks into an empty fridge-freezer in a domestic kitchen.

The Trump administration’s suspension of the USDA’s Household Food Security Report halts decades of hunger data tracking.

Getty Images, Catherine Falls Commercial

Trump Gives Up the Fight Against Hunger

A Vanishing Measure of Hunger

Consider a hunger policy director at a state Department of Social Services studying food insecurity data across the state. For years, she has relied on the USDA’s annual Household Food Security Report to identify where hunger is rising, how many families are skipping meals, and how many children go to bed hungry. Those numbers help her target resources and advocate for stronger programs.

Now there is no new data. The survey has been “suspended for review,” officially to allow for a “methodological reassessment” and cost analysis. Critics say the timing and language suggest political motives. It is one of many federal data programs quietly dropped under a Trump executive order on so-called “nonessential statistics,” a phrase that almost parodies itself. Labeling hunger data “nonessential” is like turning off a fire alarm because it makes too much noise; it implies that acknowledging food insecurity is optional and reveals more about the administration’s priorities than reality.

Keep ReadingShow less
Standing Up for Democracy Requires Giving the Other Side Credit When It Is Deserved

U.S. President Donald Trump poses with the signed agreement at a world leaders' summit on ending the Gaza war on October 13, 2025 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.

(Photo by Suzanne Plunkett - Pool / Getty Images)

Standing Up for Democracy Requires Giving the Other Side Credit When It Is Deserved

American political leaders have forgotten how to be gracious to their opponents when people on the other side do something for which they deserve credit. Our antagonisms have become so deep and bitter that we are reluctant to give an inch to our political adversaries.

This is not good for democracy.

Keep ReadingShow less
The Critical Value of Indigenous Climate Stewardship

As the COP 30 nears, Indigenous-led conservation offers the best hope to protect the Amazon rainforest and stabilize the global climate system.

Getty Images, photography by Ulrich Hollmann

The Critical Value of Indigenous Climate Stewardship

In August, I traveled by bus, small plane, and canoe to the sacred headwaters of the Amazon, in Ecuador. It’s a place with very few roads, yet like many areas in the rainforest, foreign business interests have made contact with its peoples and in just the last decade have rapidly changed the landscape, scarring it with mines or clearcutting for cattle ranching.

The Amazon Rainforest is rightly called the “lungs of the planet.” It stores approximately 56.8 billion metric tons of carbon, equivalent to nearly twice the world’s yearly carbon emissions. With more than 2,500 tree species that account for roughly one-third of all tropical trees on earth, the Amazon stores the equivalent to 10–15 years of all global fossil fuel emissions. The "flying rivers" generated by the forest affect precipitation patterns in the United States, as well our food supply chains, and scientists are warning that in the face of accelerating climate change, deforestation, drought, and fire, the Amazon stands at a perilous tipping point.

Keep ReadingShow less
Indiana Republicans Could Lose at the Ballot over Redistricting Plan
Image generated by IVN staff

Indiana Republicans Could Lose at the Ballot over Redistricting Plan

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- As Indiana Republicans weigh whether to call a special session to redraw the state’s congressional map, a new Unite America poll shows that voters overwhelmingly oppose the idea — including a majority of GOP primary voters.

The survey, conducted October 7–9 by 3D Strategic Research, found that 44% of Hoosiers oppose mid-decade redistricting while only 31% support it. After hearing balanced arguments from both sides, opposition jumped to 69%, with just 21% still in favor.

Keep ReadingShow less