- House Republicans are opposed to proxy voting, and Kevin McCarthy tried to end it with a lawsuit.
- But 15 Republicans have used the system — which allows members to cast votes on others' behalf — over 100 times.
- They include prominent names like Matt Gaetz, Madison Cawthorn, and Paul Gosar.
Ever since the House of Representatives instituted proxy voting — a procedure that allows members of Congress to vote on behalf of their colleagues — Republicans have made their opposition to the practice clear.
When the House voted in May 2020 to allow proxy voting due to the public health emergency spurred by COVID-19, every single Republican lawmaker voted against the measure. Days later, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy sued House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over it, challenging the constitutionality of proxy voting.
"It is a brazen violation of the Constitution, a dereliction of our duty as elected officials, and would silence the American people's voice during a crisis," McCarthy said at the time. "Democrats are creating a precedent for further injustice. If their changes are acceptable, what stops the majority from creating a 'House Rule' that stipulates the minority party's votes only count for half of the majority party's?"
Ultimately, the Supreme Court declined to hear the complaint in January 2022. Republicans have also claimed that Pelosi only keeps the procedure in place to this day in order to shore up Democrats' razor-thin majority.
But with time, Republicans have begun to break with their stated opposition to the practice and attest that they are "unable to physically attend proceedings in the House Chamber due to the ongoing public health emergency" while dealing with health issues, the births of children, political events, and ailing family members.
Insider analyzed the data from each of the over 700 roll call votes taken by the House between May 20, 2020 until April 7, 2022, analyzing which members used the practice most frequently.
While proxy voting is still overwhelmingly used by Democrats versus Republicans, Insider identified 15 Republican House members who've cast over 100 proxy votes in the last two years.
Rep. Russ Fulcher of Idaho
Fulcher, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus who's served since 2019, has voted by proxy 177 times — by far the most frequent proxy voter in the Republican caucus, despite joining McCarthy's lawsuit to end the practice.
At the time, he argued that proxy voting was an "unconstitutional process" that would "eliminate any meaningful debate and allow Members to stay home collecting a paycheck while others cast their vote."
But after Fulcher was diagnosed with renal cancer in June 2021, he began utilizing that very same process the following month as he underwent chemotherapy, a punishing treatment that can lead to fatigue, among other symptoms. He continued frequent proxy voting into the fall of 2021.
Still, Fulcher says he wants proxy voting abolished.
"While proxy voting was a useful tool during my cancer treatment, my situation was rare ... by far the exception, not the rule," Fulcher told Insider in a statement, arguing that the system has "proven to be too ripe" for abuse. "I remain in support of removing the policy."
Yet even after announcing that he was cancer-free in December 2021, Fulcher has voted by proxy 17 times in 2022, most recently asking fellow Republican Rep. Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania to cast 6 votes on his behalf on April 5.
Rep. Vern Buchanan of Florida
Buchanan, a Florida Republican who's served since 2007 and could be next in line to chair the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, has voted by proxy 165 times over the last 16 months.
His first proxy vote took place on January 12, 2021, when he asked fellow Republican Rep. Kat Cammack of Florida to vote on his behalf against a resolution calling on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th amendment and remove former President Donald Trump from office.
—Craig Caplan (@CraigCaplan) January 13, 2021He then voted by proxy regularly until mid-April 2021, and has continued to sporadically use it since then.
Buchanan did not respond to Insider's request for comment, but he's previously said that the procedure allows him to be "more productive" than if he'd voted in person.
"I can be a lot more productive back home. There's nobody up here. So I just felt like I'd have a bigger impact in my district back in Sarasota," Buchanan told CNN in July. "Nobody can come in and visit with you. We can be more productive visiting with people having meetings back home, not spending a half a day each way coming up here, flying up here, and there's nobody here."
Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina
McHenry, who's served in the House since 2005 and hopes to chair the House Financial Services Committee in the next Congress, has voted by proxy 164 times.
After fellow Republican Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana first cast a proxy vote on behalf of McHenry on January 21, 2022, the North Carolina Republican has used the procedure with relative frequency, most recently on April 5.
McHenry told CNN in July that he believes the practice is "being held onto for political purposes rather than for health purposes." Democrats' majority in the chamber is in the single digits, making absences potentially fraught — and McHenry says proxy voting has impeded normal business.
"I think, frankly, as an institution we should get back to dealing with each other, talking to each other and trying to understand each other," he told CNN. "People aren't here. And we're a one-on-one institution. We're a human interaction place both with members and with the press."
Rep. Greg Steube of Florida
Steube, another Florida congressman who's served since 2019, is the fourth most frequent proxy voter in the Republican caucus, despite signing onto House Republicans' anti-proxy voting lawsuit in May 2020.
"By signing on to this lawsuit I am committing to refrain from lending my vote via proxy or placing a vote via proxy on behalf of another Member," Stuebe wrote in a letter to McCarthy at the time.
Since then, he's voted remotely 161 times.
The Florida Republican also warned at the time that the procedure would "allow Members of Congress to cast votes on behalf of American citizens from entirely different districts and states who never elected them for representation."
Since then, he's had Republican colleagues from Ohio, South Carolina, and other districts in Florida cast proxy votes on his behalf.
Steube's office did not respond to repeated requests for comment from Insider.
Rep. Jim Baird of Indiana
Baird, who's served in Congress since 2019, is the fifth-most frequent proxy voter in the Republican caucus, casting 159 votes remotely in the last two years.
Like Buchanan, his first proxy vote was against a resolution calling on Pence to invoke the 25th amendment, and he's voted remotely sporadically since then, asking fellow Indiana Reps. Jackie Walorski and Larry Bucshon to cast votes on his behalf almost every time.
Baird's office did not respond to Insider's repeated requests for comment.
Rep. Jim Hagedorn of Minnesota
Hagedorn, who died in February after suffering from kidney cancer, had become the 6th most frequent proxy voter after casting 155 votes remotely.
As the House prepared to vote on the measure in May 2020, Hagedorn — who had previously undergone treatment for his disease — took the House floor to speak out against the idea.
"You know, some might question why a member of Congress like myself — who's dealing with Stage IV cancer, getting treatment the last year at the Mayo Clinic — why I would be the one passionately wanting everyone to travel and work in this chamber," he remarked. "It's because it's a bad idea for this House."
But after Hagedorn's cancer re-emerged in July 2021, he began to vote remotely again, and stopped voting in person entirely beginning in November 2021 until his death in mid-February.
Rep. Brian Babin of Texas
Babin, a Houston-area congressman who was first elected in 2015, has voted by proxy 127 times.
"House Democrats' proxy voting rule takes away the constitutional duty of every member, and I oppose it completely," said Babin in May 2020 as he announced that would be joining McCarthy's lawsuit.
He added that he "will never utilize the constitutionally dubious provisions" that allow for proxy voting.
But on March 8th, 2021, days after a group of House Republicans faced backlash from their colleagues for using proxy voting while attending CPAC in Florida, the Texas congressman utilized the procedure for the first time.
He was also among several House Republicans who voted by proxy on June 30, 2021 in order to travel to the US-Mexico border for an event with Trump.
—RSC (@RepublicanStudy) June 30, 2021Babin's office did not respond to repeated requests for comment from Insider.
Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina
Cawthorn — the far-right 26-year old congressman who's perhaps best known for suggesting that his GOP colleagues participate in cocaine-fueled orgies — is the eighth most frequent proxy voter among Republicans, casting 124 votes remotely since he arrived in Congress in 2021. But he's accused Democrats of abandoning their posts by voting by proxy.
"Leaders show up no matter how uncertain the times are," Cawthorn tweeted in July 2020, days after he unexpectedly defeated a Trump-backed candidate in a GOP primary.
"The Democrats are cowards for hiding and not showing up to work," he said.
—Madison Cawthorn (@CawthornforNC) July 1, 2020But Cawthorn changed his tune just weeks after being sworn in, with McHenry — himself the third most frequent proxy-voting Republican — voting on his fellow North Carolinian's behalf in late February 2021 while Cawthorn attended CPAC.
The North Carolina Republican defended that particular vote, telling Smoky Mountain News days later that Pelosi "arbitrarily changed our voting schedule to intentionally situate it over CPAC in an effort to prevent congresspeople from speaking to their constituents," he said.
"I chose to value speaking with conservatives and North Carolinians over abiding by her bad faith ruling," he added.
But since then, Cawthorn has voted remotely plenty more times, including over 50 times just this year.
Cawthorn's office did not respond to Insider's repeated requests for comment.
Rep. John Carter of Texas
Carter, who's served in Congress since 2002, has cast 122 proxy votes, the ninth highest rate among Republicans.
The Austin-area lawmaker first began to use the procedure in 2021, and a colleague's failure to vote on his Carter's behalf in May 2021 may have allowed for the initial House passage of a bill providing emergency funding for the Capitol Police following January 6.
The initial 213-212 vote was nearly a tie due to the defection of several progressive Democratic lawmakers, who argued that the bill failed to address the underlying issues that caused the riot.
Carter was one of two Republicans who didn't vote on the measure, while the rest of their Republican colleagues voted against the security funding, despite asking fellow Republican Rep. Kevin Calvert of California to vote no on his behalf.
"Rep. Calvert had been voting by proxy for Rep. Carter throughout the week," a spokesman for Calvert told JustTheNews. "Rep. Calvert made a mistake and simply forgot to cast Rep. Carter's vote."
Carter told Bloomberg in February that he'd used the procedure to take care of his wife while she was sick, and conceded that technology enables members to make informed decisions about how to vote.
"If you have a serious family emergency or some kind of emergency in your district, like a hurricane came in or stuff like that, you ought to be able to proxy vote," said Carter.
Carter's office did not respond to Insider's repeated requests for comment.
Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona
Gosar — who's most recently garnered headlines for attending white nationalist conferences and being censured by the House of Representatives for releasing an anime video that depicted him killing Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York — also happens to be the 10th most frequent proxy voter in the Republican conference.
He voted by proxy for the first time on January 21, 2021. Just six days later, Gosar wrote on Twitter that "Pelosi's 'proxy voting' scheme is shameful and unconstitutional."
He has since deleted the tweet, and proceeded to proxy vote 110 more times since then, including once to attend a white nationalist event, while asking colleagues like Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Matt Gaetz of Florida, and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia to vote on his behalf.
At one point, he even asked fellow Republican Rep. Ann Wagner of Missouri to vote on his behalf while he attended CPAC, only for her to decline when she learned why.
"I was not going to vote anyone's proxy who was traveling for other reasons," she told CNN last year. "I just said, 'you know, find someone else to carry your proxy.'"
Gosar's office did not respond to Insider's repeated requests for comment.
Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida
Salazar, a former Telemundo reporter who unexpectedly flipped a Miami-area House district in 2020, has voted by proxy 107 times.
After first voting via proxy in July 2021, Salazar has continued to use the procedure frequently, including casting nearly 70 votes by proxy in 2022.
The congresswoman told Insider in a statement that since her elderly mother fell ill last year, she's had to miss votes in order to serve as her main caretaker.
"My parents sacrificed so much to give me a better life and my mother has always been there for me," said Salazar. "Without knowing how much time we have left together I want to be there for her."
Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York
Stefanik, whose position as caucus chair makes her the third highest-ranking member of House Republican leadership, has voted by proxy 106 times since January 2021.
Her use of proxy voting is particularly flagrant, given her position in leadership and repeated denunciations of proxy voting, even while using the practice to attend a fundraiser with Trump in January 2021.
Stefanik spokesman Alex deGrasse defended her use of proxy voting to attend the event, telling the Adirondack Daily Enterprise that she "will always work to ensure her district is represented at the highest levels which is why she made sure the district had a vote."
Stefanik also voted entirely by proxy from August 24 until October 12 after giving birth to her first child in late August.
In January 2022, Stefanik defended her use of the practice even while declaring that Republicans "believe in in-person voting" and would eliminate proxy voting if they regain control of Congress.
"It's the rules of the House right now," Stefanik said. "These are the rules that Nancy Pelosi sets. She sets the mask rule, she sets the magnetometer rules. I oppose both of those rules, but we use them. I use those rules because those are the rules that she has set."
Stefanik's office did not respond to Insider's repeated requests for comment.
Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada
Amodei, a low-key congressman who's represented a wide swath of northern Nevada since 2011, has proxy voted 105 times.
Nearly all of those proxy votes, which began in January 2021, were cast by either Republican Reps. Troy Balderson of Ohio or Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania.
When asked about his frequent use of the procedure in August 2021, he justified it in similar terms to those that Stefanik would later use.
"The use of proxies has been reality [sic] of The House Rules for nearly two years," he told the Nevada Current. "I follow House Rules."
Amodei's office did not respond to Insider's repeated requests for comment.
Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida
Waltz, who succeeded current Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a special election in 2018 following his resignation from Congress, has used proxy voting 102 times.
In every instance, Waltz has attested that he is "unable to physically attend proceedings in the House Chamber due to the ongoing public health emergency," asking fellow Florida Republicans like Salazar, Cammack, and others to vote on his behalf.
Waltz's office did not respond to repeated requests for comment from Insider.
Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida
Matt Gaetz, the far-right congressman who's currently under a federal investigation for sex-trafficking allegations, has voted by proxy 100 times.
He was among the Republicans that used the procedure to attend CPAC in February 2022, and unlike most of his GOP colleagues, he even used it in 2020.
On both December 18 and 20 of 2020, Gaetz asked former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii to vote on his behalf.
But Gaetz is one of the rare Republicans who's actually publicly supportive of proxy voting; when Insider reached out to his office for comment, spokesman Joel Valdez referred to a Washington Examiner op–ed that Gaetz wrote in November 2020.
"To date, I've toed the party line, but no more: the Republicans are wrong," wrote Gaetz. "I am now convinced that remote voting would be a devastating blow to the lobbyists and special interests who corrupt our politics and harm our nation."
He went on to detail what he sees as the average lawmaker's day, including taking "thousand-dollar PAC checks" from lobbyists and raising "tens of thousands of dollars over mediocre Tex-Mex."
"I support remote voting because we are better as public servants when we spend more time with the public we are elected to serve," he wrote. "And if we cannot drain the swamp, we should at least spend less time in it."
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