For the past 231 years, fully participating in Congress meant having to physically show up. But the House of Representatives approved a momentous change on Friday, allowing lawmakers to vote on legislation, sign subpoenas, and participate in hearings from the safety of their own homes, a move necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic. According to the New York Times, the rules allow for any House member to cast their vote “by giving precise, binding instructions to a proxy who is able to be present on the House floor” and “provide, pending certification, for a process in which lawmakers will eventually be able to cast their votes technologically from home, either via a secure online portal or a video conferencing system.”
Friday’s party-line vote (217 to 189) follows weeks of negotiations between party leaders, reports the Washington Post, with Republicans arguing that lawmakers should show up to their workplace like other essential workers and advocating for more modest changes to the operations of the House. While some of the rule changes are already in line with the operations of the Republican-controlled Senate, such as the use of videoconferencing technology at committee hearings, the Post notes that “the House Democrats’ proposal would go further, allowing fully virtual hearings as well as committee business meetings in which legislation can be considered, amended, and advanced to the floor.”
The rule changes are an effort to adapt to the coronavirus, a public health crisis that has upended how work is traditionally conducted across industries and government. In March, my colleague Abigail Tracy reported growing concerns for the health and safety of lawmakers—an aging population—and staffers. “In the absence of guidance from the top, congressional offices have treated coronavirus with varying degrees of urgency,” Tracy wrote. “Given that Congress is effectively an amalgam of hundreds of little businesses, with each operating independently, the Hill’s response to coronavirus has been plagued by inconsistency. Another Democratic staffer described it as ‘peak congressional disorganization.’”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is among those who see the rule changes as a threat to the rights of the minority and a break with tradition. “We are changing the power of Congress itself,” the California Republican said on Friday. “The Founders would be ashamed of today,” he told reporters. “This is not what they envisioned, this is not what they believed in, and this is not the action the American public believe.” House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, the Post notes, defended the changes as “a common-sense solution to an unprecedented crisis that demands our ingenuity and adaptability as an institution.”
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