WASHINGTON – Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna wrote in a letter on Monday that she was leaving the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus amid reports that members of the group were looking to squash her efforts to let new parents vote by proxy.
Earlier this month, Luna had successfully garnered 218 signatures on a document called a discharge petition needed to force a vote on a bipartisan resolution that would allow a House member to vote by proxy for up to 12 weeks if they or their spouse has given birth. Proxy voting allows lawmakers to designate another member to vote on their behalf.
However, members of the House Freedom Caucus had reportedly urged leadership to kill the effort, proposing that the threshold of support needed for a discharge petition be raised. The caucus has roughly 35 members and it includes high-profile Republican firebrands such as Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado.
Luna wrote in a letter addressed to the caucus, according to a copy obtained by USA TODAY, that she has “consistently supported” each member “even in moments of disagreement, honoring the mutual respect that has guided our caucus.”
She added, “that respect, however, was shattered last week.”
“I cannot remain part of a caucus where a select few operate outside its guidelines, misuse its name, broker backroom deals that undermine its core values and where the lines of compromise and transaction are blurred, disparage me to the press, and encourage misrepresentation of me to the American people,” she wrote.
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Luna, who had a baby in 2023, tweeted last week that she would “likely” leave the House Freedom Caucus, arguing that she had “approached this entire process with honesty and integrity, doing things the right way.”
“I will not compromise on something as important as ensuring new moms can vote while recovering. I believe this change will improve the institution in the long term,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and members of the caucus, including Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas., have argued that proxy voting is unconstitutional.
“Respectfully to my friend – this (unconstitutional) rule would ultimately NOT be limited to moms. Cancer patients, dads, & worst of all, people who lazily abuse it (eg, voting from boats). She leaves out her discharge allows no amendments! We should show up to work/vote,” Roy wrote on X last week.
But Luna previously dismissed those arguments, noting that the bipartisan resolution says it is limited to new parents and sets limits on how long a lawmaker can vote by proxy.
