https://thehill.com/homenews/house/498062-house-adopts-historic-rules-changes-to-allow-remote-voting
The House on Friday adopted historic rules changes to allow lawmakers to cast votes and conduct committee meetings remotely during the coronavirus pandemic in an effort to resume legislative work that has been on hold amid safety concerns over gathering in the Capitol.
The vote to enact the resolution fell along party lines, 217-189, with three Democrats — Reps. Rick Larsen (Wash.), Elaine Luria (Va.) and Tom O’Halleran (Ariz.) — joining Republicans to vote no.
Lawmakers have been frustrated over the last two months that much of their usual legislative and oversight work has been effectively sidelined while they largely stayed away from Washington, D.C., out of concerns about traveling to and congregating in one of the nation’s coronavirus hot spots.
The set of changes allows proxy voting, in which absent lawmakers can authorize colleagues to cast votes on their behalf, as well as virtual committee hearings, depositions and markups of bills by videoconference. It also authorizes the House Administration Committee to study the feasibility of remote voting using technology.
The debate over whether Congress should reconvene in person during the pandemic has become another flashpoint in the culture wars over reopening the nation’s economy, with President Trump and Republicans pushing for loosening restrictions while Democrats remain wary of risking more coronavirus outbreaks.
“Convening Congress must not turn into a super-spreader event,” said House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern (D-Mass.). “This is the type of adapting that this House has always done. Our founders did not vote by electronic device, but we do. Constituents decades ago couldn't watch floor proceedings live on C-SPAN or listen to them on the radio, but ours can.”
The GOP-controlled Senate reconvened last week with some new safeguards in place, such as encouraging facial coverings and partially remote hearings with some senators and witnesses participating by videoconference. But Democrats, leading the much larger 430-member House, have cited advice from the Capitol physician to wait until the nation’s capital has contained its coronavirus outbreak.
House Democrats initially planned to vote on the rules changes last month, but decided to hold off to see if discussions with Republicans would bear fruit.
Republicans had proposed ways for lawmakers to reconvene in person with some new safety measures, such as installing plexiglass at security checkpoints and committee daises.
But Democrats argued that those measures were insufficient and opted to plow ahead this week despite the lack of a bipartisan agreement. Democrats did note that they would be incorporating some suggestions from Republicans, such as only allowing committees to use specific platforms and conducting hybrid hearings like in the Senate.
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