Coronavirus: US House Democrats back changing rules to allow remote voting during pandemic

WASHINGTON (NYTIMES) - Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday (April 16) threw her support behind a plan to allow House members to cast votes by proxy, conceding for the first time that the coronavirus pandemic that has forced Congress into an extended recess would require historic modifications to how the institution has operated for centuries.

The announcement was a stark shift for Ms Pelosi, who as recently as last week dismissed the idea of remote voting, which would require a change to House rules.

Speaking to reporters shortly after noon, she said the issue was not yet settled - "It's not as easy as you might think" - but made clear that she believed change was coming.

"Everybody's working so hard on all of these initiatives, including on how we can come together, whether it's by proxy voting or remote voting or whatever it is," Ms Pelosi said then. "When we are ready, we will do it."

A few hours after Ms Pelosi spoke, Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the Rules Committee chairman who has been studying the issue at the speaker's request, briefed his fellow Democrats on a private conference call on his recommendation that House rules be changed to allow remote voting by proxy during the pandemic.

Ms Pelosi's spokesman said she backed Mr McGovern's plan, which if approved by the House would pave the way for the first time in the history of Congress for members to cast votes other than in person. It would allow lawmakers who could not travel to Washington because of the pandemic to give specific instructions on how to vote to colleagues authorised to vote on their behalf.

With Congress sidelined by the pandemic and unable to return to Washington until May at the earliest, Ms Pelosi and Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, have been under mounting pressure to come up with alternative ways of conducting business.

Their current means of operating - trying to push through legislation on a consensus basis and hoping that nobody will object - is increasingly untenable, with partisan divisions mounting over what to include in the next round of coronavirus relief.

Other senior Democrats, including Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, have embraced the concept of remote voting in one form or another in recent days.

Earlier, Ms Pelosi noted that the House would have to reconvene to approve the creation of a special committee that she has proposed to oversee the federal government's response to the coronavirus. Lawmakers could move at the same time to change the voting rules, she said.

Mr McGovern said he hoped the speaker could work out an agreement with Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, to adopt the rule change by unanimous consent so that lawmakers did not have to come back.

Senator Roy Blunt, the chairman of the Rules Committee, said Thursday that he had initiated conversations with the panel's top Democrat, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and others to discuss remote hearings and ways to "allow members to be at least virtually together to collect information."

Senate rules already allow voting by proxy during committee meetings. But Mr Blunt said there was little talk of allowing remote voting on the Senate floor.

"I think legislative bodies don't function well unless they function collectively," Mr Blunt said, adding that other Senate leaders shared his view.

"We've dealt with these issues and even more difficult scenarios than whether you should get on an airplane or not because you might catch a virus," Mr Blunt said. "I think it's in the past been decided - and my guess is we will continue to decide - that legislative bodies have to meet in order to function."

But the House appears to be headed in a different direction. Mr Hoyer, who also opposed remote voting at the outset of the coronavirus crisis, told reporters Wednesday that he now favours voting by FaceTime. Other lawmakers have been impressed with an electronic voting system, developed by a private technology firm, Markup.Law, that runs on the Microsoft Teams platform and uses two-factor authentication.

One thing they all seem to agree on is that whatever method is chosen, it should be used sparingly.

"I was very resistant to it in a way that I think the speaker has been," Representative David Cicilline, who is also a member of leadership, said in an interview Wednesday. "I think this pandemic has obviously raised the spectre that we may have to develop a system where in a very narrow set of cases we are able to vote remotely, but I feel very strongly that it has to be in very limited circumstances."