When I was pregnant with my son Henry last year, I was told by House leadership that I would not be allowed to vote in the House of Representatives while recovering from giving birth.
I am not the only person to experience this challenge. Every new mother in Congress has had to choose between her family and doing her job. Which, in 2024, should not be the case.
Last week, I introduced bipartisan legislation to change that.
In August, prior to my son’s arrival, I met with House leadership to figure out whether or not I would be able to vote after delivery. I did not know what my birth experience was going to entail, so I wanted to make sure I had everything lined up before my son was born.
To my surprise, when I inquired whether I would be able to vote, the answer was a resounding “no”—even though the entire 117th Congress was allowed to vote by proxy during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Members from both parties used the proxy voting system during COVID. In 2021, 202 out of 225 Democratic House members and 137 out of 215 Republicans used the procedure, according to data analyzed by the Ripon Society. Some members voted by proxy while at fundraisers, on boats, or watching space shuttle launches.
Like millions of women before me, the birth of my first child did not exactly go as I had planned. I had a rough delivery; I was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia, a silent killer of pregnant women, and faced a much longer recovery time than I planned for. In addition to being on blood pressure medication, I also developed mastitis. My doctors told me not to travel, and even if they hadn’t, I was caring for my newborn, who was too young to fly.
Somehow, making a limited exception for a new mom in Congress recovering from childbirth—there have only been 12 of us in history, making up less than 0.1 percent of congresspeople—is unreasonable to some Republican and Democratic leaders.
This hypocrisy cannot go unchecked. It is both anti-family and a slap in the face to those who elected us to represent them in Congress.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
My resolution would amend House rules to allow a congresswoman who gives birth to vote by proxy for the first six weeks after her baby arrives. In line with the Constitution, this resolution does not allow a member who votes by proxy to establish a quorum.
I made sure that, unlike the COVID-era rule change, this resolution would be written narrowly. It carves out an extremely limited, time-stamped maternity leave period only for congresswomen who have physically given birth.
New mothers in Congress should not be forced to choose between their families and their constituents. It’s time that Congress gets with the times so that new mothers, chosen by their voters to represent them, can do their jobs.
Being a new mom does not make you ineligible to represent the people who duly elected you. Motherhood enriches, not diminishes, my ability to represent my constituents. Having Henry has given me a new perspective on what it means to serve the people who sent me here.
It’s not always easy—my days are filled with a lot of love, challenges, and plenty of multitasking! But easy is not the same thing as good. When you have children, your decisions and the votes you take hold a new meaning.
If anything, Washington, D.C., needs more babies. It took until 2018 for the Senate to allow newborns on the floor during votes, thanks to the incredible fight Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) led to change procedural rules to accommodate mothers caring for and breastfeeding their babies.
It should trouble us if our rules disincentivize motherhood and put family life second. Having children makes us more normal, relatable, and grounded with our people back home. It makes us less selfish. It gives us grit. It is the greatest blessing.
Public service and family life don’t have to be incompatible. If this body is supposed to be a representation of who Americans really are, prioritizing our children and nurturing our families should be woven into everything we do.
More than ever before, we need courageous leaders who understand the concerns of Americans and think of future generations when they vote on the House floor. Perhaps what Congress needs most are mothers’ voices.
Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna serves as the Representative for Florida’s 13th Congressional District.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.