Supreme Court Rejects Republicans’ Challenge to Pelosi’s Voting Rules

Jack Phillips
By Jack Phillips
January 24, 2022Politics
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Supreme Court Rejects Republicans’ Challenge to Pelosi’s Voting Rules
(L) House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) speaks at a press conference in the Capitol in Washington, on Jan. 9, 2020. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times); (R) Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) holds her weekly press briefing on Capitol Hill in Washington, on July 23, 2020. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a legal challenge by GOP lawmakers on COVID-19-related proxy voting rules that were set by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for House representatives.

The rules, which were set up in May 2020, allow members of the House to serve as proxies for colleagues in isolation due to COVID-19, the illness caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, or who were otherwise not able to cast votes on the floor.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and other GOP members filed a challenge with the high court to reverse a lower court decision in July 2021 on the rules. At the time, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia agreed that courts don’t have jurisdiction to weigh in on the House’s rules and procedures, affirming another lower court decision that reached a similar conclusion.

The Pelosi-backed proxy voting resolution passed by the House enabled lawmakers to act as a proxy for up to 10 colleagues at any one time, requiring that they disclose which members they intended to represent. It was embraced early in the pandemic and was intended to be temporary, but has been extended several times, and has remained in effect until at least Feb. 13.

Republican lawmakers have said the measure is a violation of the Constitution, arguing that only lawmakers actually present within the halls of Congress can cast votes, with McCarthy saying in a statement that he wanted to turn back Pelosi’s “perpetual proxy voting power grab.”

GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) said at a press conference last week with other Republican leaders, “We believe in in-person voting. When Republicans win back the House, that’s what we are committed to.”

Republicans have also called the proxy voting resolution a way for Democrats to maintain their slim majority in the House regardless of whether all their members are present on Capitol Hill.

“Nothing shook that uninterrupted tradition—not the Yellow Fever epidemic, not the burning of the Capitol in the War of 1812, not the Civil War, not the Spanish Flu, not two World Wars, not the 9/11 terrorist attacks,” Republicans wrote to the Supreme Court in their filing.

But Pelosi’s team wrote in court papers that “in light of the pandemic and advances in modern technology, the House has reasonably authorized members to vote remotely by providing binding, precise instructions to a member on the floor.”

The House, meanwhile, has utilized other rules that were concocted during the pandemic, including a requirement for wearing masks and a prohibition on congregating in an area called the Speakers Lobby outside the House chamber. In addition, many House and Senate hearings are held virtually, and tourists are not allowed in the Capitol.

Reuters contributed to this report.

From The Epoch Times

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