Van Drew breaks with his party’s leaders on proxy voting for new parents

Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) has made a surprising break with the leaders of his own party for the second time this year, joining a small group of renegade Republicans to defeat an effort that would have nixed a fellow member’s bill allowing House members with brand-new children to cast proxy votes.

In explaining his vote, Van Drew said that allowing new congressional parents to have some time with their kids at home is in keeping with the Republican Party’s values.

“I’m pro-woman, pro-life, pro-family, pro-child – all the things that I think we should stand for in the Republican Party,” Van Drew said.

The recent push for pursuing proxy voting for new parents began with Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida), who had a child in 2023 and was unable to cast votes remotely (something that had been allowed for all members during the Covid pandemic). The issue gained new prominence earlier this year, when Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-Colorado) had to fly to Washington with her month-old son in order to vote against a major Republican bill.

Luna’s bill, allowing new fathers and mothers to designate another member to vote in their stead for 12 weeks, was opposed by GOP leaders, so Luna teamed up with Pettersen and other Democrats to instead file a discharge petition, which forces bills to come to the floor if they receive more than 218 signatures. The petition quickly reached the magic 218 number, with most of the signatories being Democrats – and one of them being Van Drew.

Republican leaders, though, remained adamantly against the proposal, and put language into an unrelated procedural measure today that would have blocked Luna’s bill from reaching the floor. Most Republicans, among them Reps. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) and Chris Smith (R-Manchester), supported the measure, but Van Drew and eight other Republicans teamed up with the entire Democratic caucus to defeat it.

“We don’t have hundreds of pregnant women” in Congress, Van Drew said. “Now and then, a woman is pregnant and then gives birth, and wants to spend a little special time with their newborn baby – there’s nothing wrong with that. And she still needs to participate. It’s the 21st century.”

The defeat of the procedural motion so heavily short-circuited Republican leadership’s plans, in fact, that the remaining House votes planned for this week have been cancelled, and the period from tomorrow until Sunday has been re-designated as a district work period.

Van Drew’s no vote wasn’t the first time that the South Jersey congressman, a reliable conservative, has shown a maverick streak this year. As the House debated a budget resolution in February that directed Congress to make sweeping spending reductions, Van Drew emerged as a key holdout, saying he was worried the resolution would lead to Medicaid cuts; the congressman eventually fell in line on that vote, but he’s committed to opposing any future legislation that targets Medicaid.

“I’m okay … cutting the Department of Education. I’m okay cutting USAID. I’m okay cutting a lot of the other things that are being cut,” Van Drew said today. “[But cutting Medicaid] is wrong. This affects real people – not bureaucrats in Washington.”

This story was updated at 5:47 p.m. to note that remaining House votes have been cancelled.