News/Commentary

Speaker Johnson furious at 9 Republicans who voted with Dems, hijacked Trump’s agenda

April 2, 2025 | | Print Article

Top House Republicans, including Speaker Mike Johnson and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, are furious that nine of their colleagues voted with Democrats on Tuesday in favor of proxy voting.

At issue is whether new parents should be allowed to vote remotely from home during the first few months after their child’s birth.

Leading the charge on the right has been Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who staunchly supports proxy voting — so much so that she resigned from the House Freedom Caucus this week in protest of their opposition to it.

Johnson and Greene, on the other hand, strongly oppose proxy voting.

Flash forward to Tuesday, when Luna and eight other House Republicans voted with Democrats to stop the chamber’s GOP majority from implementing a procedural rule that would have prevented them from bringing a proxy voting bill to the House floor for a vote.

The eight other House Republicans who voted with Luna were Kevin Kiley, Tim Burchett, Jeff Van Drew, Greg Steube, Mike Lawler, Ryan Mackenzie, Nick LaLota, and Max Miller.

“We worked as a team and I think that today is a pretty historical day for the entire conference,” Luna proudly told ABC News after Tuesday’s vote. “It’s showing that the body has decided that parents deserve a voice in Washington, and also to the importance of female members having a hope in Washington, D.C.”

Johnson and Greene, meanwhile, were furious.

“Well, it was a very disappointing result on the floor there,” the speaker told reporters. “A handful of Republicans joined with all the Democrats to take down a rule. That’s rarely done. It’s very unfortunate in this case.”

Johnson then did the unthinkable — he basically shut down the House for the remainder of the week on the basis that it’d somehow be impossible to continue working with the procedural rule gone.

“Let me just make this clear — that rule being brought down means that we can’t have any further action on the floor this week,” he said. “That means we will not be voting on the SAVE Act for election integrity.”

“We will not be voting on the rogue judges who are attacking President Trump’s agenda. We will not be taking down these terrible Biden policies with the CRA votes. All that was just wiped off the table. It’s very unfortunate. We’ll regroup and come back, and we’ll have to do this again,” he added.

Listen:

As for Greene, she angrily aimed fire directly at Luna.

“I think members of Congress need to basically leave their egos at the door and realize that this is an important job in the same way that soldiers go off and they’re deployed overseas, they come home and actually meet their babies for the first time and their babies are several months old,” she said in a video published to Twitter/X.

“Members of Congress don’t have to be here. They don’t have to be here. Being a member of Congress is a privilege. You’re serving your district. There’s lots of seasons of life. I’m a mother, I’ve raised three children, and when my children were babies and were young, I prioritized them in that season of life,” she added.

“Now, I serve in Congress because I’m not raising children, and I think that’s a really important point to make and if any member of Congress for any reason whatsoever finds them in a situation where they’re not able to do the job here, the important job we’re elected to do, they should step down because someone else can serve in their place,” Greene concluded.

Listen:

Luna has thus far ignored Greene’s attack. But she did take to the House floor Tuesday to speak about her boss, Johnson.

Listen:

Vivek Saxena
Latest posts by Vivek Saxena (see all)

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

Latest Articles