There’s a bill in Congress to allow proxy voting for representatives with new babies. Mike Johsnon has gone so far as to just shut down everything for the week just to stop this bill, because there are Republicans who support it.
There is no issue with proxy voting being “corrupted” because all these votes are public, not by secret ballot. So there’s no functional or practical reason to not allow remote voting. It could always be verified that it was done on the level.
But it’s the same old story about remote work and forcing Return To Office.
If they start to allow new parents to remote vote with new babies…
Of course this will become the disability accessibility issue that it really is. They likely don’t want to create precedents because the far right is eugenicist and resents anyone disabled from participating in society, let alone the halls of power.
Constituents will start to question why their representatives have to live in DC and hobnob with each other more than their own neighbors back home that they represent. They will say they need to collaborate with the magic of in-person – as if telephones haven’t existed and party calls for decades already. But we know what that means. It means that they’re more interested in getting a long weekend from their job than actually doing their job – representing us.
People who want to serve in Congress will start questioning all sorts of barriers. Anand Giridharadas recently recounted a story on a livestream about how some years ago he had talked to someone about a possible run for some office, and the person who talked to him basically told him to forget about spending any time with his toddlers for the duration of holding office. Why is it made so hard for people to actually be a part of the ruling bodies do you think? It absolutely disincentivizes people running who actually want to spend time with their families, who actually want to live in the district they represent, who actually want to hang with their neighbors in their district, and it incentivizes people who would maybe prefer to hobnob with fancy lobbyists and donors from the upper class. The donor class certainly likes having them all in one place for easy access by the lobbying groups they set up in DC.
And think of the fossil fuel use. If you think it’s important to stop unnecessary travel, like commutes where telework makes more sense, and reducing business airline travel, these people in Congress fly way more than the average person. But if they didn’t actually have to be there in person, why couldn’t they live normal lives working remotely most of the time?
I don’t know why this sounds tough to conceptualize to some people but this is what it’s really about when it comes right down to it. We need changes in the way we do things.
My letter to my congressperson:
I support proxy voting in Congress and so should you.
Please feel free to copy or repurpose for your own letters to reps.