Democratic Rep. Brittany Pettersen held her newborn baby while speaking on the House floor in favor of a petition to allow remote voting for new parents.
“It is unfathomable that in 2025, we have not modernized Congress,” Pettersen said while bouncing her 9-week-old son named Sam.
House Republican leadership introduced a joint rule that would have blocked Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s bipartisan discharge petition to allow proxy voting for new lawmaker parents up to 12 weeks after giving birth.
However, that vote failed 206-222, with nine Republicans siding with a unanimous Democratic caucus to form an unusual bipartisan coalition — throwing the House in a temporary paralysis with the surprise development.
