House Democratic leaders dash hopes of remote voting during coronavirus crisis
Allowing members of Congress to vote remotely during the coronavirus pandemic would raise “serious security, logistical and constitutional challenges,” according to a new report commissioned by House Democratic leadership.
The 23-page report, prepared at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s direction, is the first official study of options for voting on legislation without being on Capitol Hill during the current crisis. Its findings are a blow to lawmakers in both parties in the House and Senate who were hoping for an alternative to voting in person after colleagues tested positive for COVID-19.
Members of the House are currently scattered across the country and fearful about boarding airplanes to return to Washington to vote in person.
More Republican senators are going into quarantine after being exposed to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who has contracted COVID-19. The self-quarantined senators shrink the in-person majority that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell might need to advance a $2 trillion relief and stimulus bill.
Lawmakers who had previously dismissed the concept of voting from outside the Capitol complex, such as Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., were starting to warm to the idea.
“Public health and safety dictate that we find a way to do our legislative business without putting Members of Congress and their staff at risk,” said Feinstein, who at 86 is the oldest senator, in a statement to McClatchy. “I think a number of senators understand that we should look at alternatives to the normal process in times of emergency.”
Congress is heavily represented by members in the older age demographic most vulnerable to complications from COVID-19.
But the report released Monday night could dash hopes among rank-and-file lawmakers who wanted a remote voting option and hoped that they could pressure McConnell and Pelosi to consider it in order to pass the economic relief bill currently being negotiated on Capitol Hill.
While the report, prepared by the Democratic staff for the House Rules Committee, focuses on the logistical hurdles to implementing remote voting procedures in the House, all of the major concerns it outlines would also apply to the Senate.
The report concludes that allowing members of Congress to vote remotely rather than in person would be too ambitious an undertaking to quickly implement in the midst of a global health crisis.
“A rule change of this magnitude would also be one of the biggest rule changes in the last century, in one of the most critical institutions in our country,” the report states. “It would require major changes to foundational House rules surrounding deliberation, voting, and attendance,which would almost certainly cause unintended consequences if not done with adequate forethought and discussion.”
Noting that there is no constitutional precedent for remote voting, the report recommends more study of the issue: “It may be prudent to consider the feasibility of remote voting for certain emergency situations, but that decision should be a multi-committee effort with substantial study and development.”
Foreseen disappointment
Earlier Monday — as more and more lawmakers were clamoring, even pleading, for remote voting to avoid the spread of COVID-19 on Capitol Hill — congressional aides were quietly warning that the findings of the House Rules Committee report were destined to disappoint advocates of changing the procedure.
Aides told McClatchy that even if congressional leaders agreed to a new process that would permit remote voting in Congress during times of national emergencies, getting a system up and running quickly to use during the current crisis would not be a simple task.
Each of the leading proposals for remote voting that has been formally introduced on both sides of the Capitol would require members to be in Washington, D.C., to vote to change the rules to allow future remote voting, the aides pointed out.
The only way around that would be for all 100 senators and 435 House members to agree to a rules change by “unanimous consent,” which does not require a roll call vote.
Then, congressional support agencies would have to draw up plans to implement the new remote voting system, including identifying approved technologies. That could take some time, especially taking into account cybersecurity concerns, said aides.
The report also mentioned those concerns.
“In the wake of the 2016 election interference and potential 2020 election interference, implementing a secure method for voting would be critical and require an expert staff dedicated to ensuring there are no foreign or domestic attacks threatening the integrity of a vote by any Member, or threatening the system’s functionality as a whole,” the report states.
It goes on to cite the recent malfunctioning of an application used to record votes during the Iowa caucuses as an example of the problems that could arise.
The two existing House and Senate resolutions to establish remote, electronic voting systems also would not necessarily address the current situation, congressional aides said.
The “MOBILE Act” — which Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., has introduced during every Congress since he was sworn into office in 2013 — would only allow remote voting in the House for bills brought to the floor under the “suspension of the rules,” an expedited procedure for considering legislation that requires two-thirds of those present and voting in the affirmative for a bill to be passed.
Typically, bills considered under suspension are noncontroversial, but there are sometimes unanticipated disagreements that prompt a measure to fail. It is uncertain whether a massive economic relief bill like the one currently being negotiated on Capitol Hill would be able to pass under that procedure.
A resolution sponsored by Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, would require Senate leaders to agree on when to designate an emergency scenario that would necessitate a 30-day window in which members could vote remotely.
McConnell and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York are these days agreeing on very little.
Continued efforts
Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., who has been helping spearhead a campaign to compel Congress to adopt remote voting procedures, was defiant Monday when asked how hard it would be to implement new protocols.
She said in a statement to McClatchy that the current challenges were the result of ignoring the problem when leaders had the chance to address it.
“Eleven days ago, I called on House leaders of both parties to adopt remote voting. They refused to even discuss it,” Porter said. “While I’m gratified to see bicameral, bipartisan support is growing, the truth [is] that the correct time to adopt remote voting was when the House was last in session.”
“Foresight and planning can save lives,” she added, “and we did not need to wait for the inevitable of several Members testing positive for COVID-19 to debate a sound idea.”
In the new report released Monday evening, Democrats on the House Rules Committee offered other suggestions for how members might vote on the House floor in the days, weeks or even months ahead as the coronavirus pandemic continues to require social distancing.
The ideal scenario, according to the report, would be getting unanimous consent to pass legislation. It was not clear, however, whether that would be possible for passing a controversial spending package like the one still being negotiated.
Pelosi will have to make a decision very soon about if and when she will call her members back to Washington to vote, and how she will convince many of them to make a trip that could be risky for their health.
Meanwhile, McConnell is keeping Senate Republicans in session until an agreement is reached on the spending package.
He has given no indication he plans to allow any changes beyond lengthening the amount of time Republicans can vote on the Senate floor to cut down on crowding, and no longer convening daily member lunches.
In a tele-town hall on Monday evening, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told constituents it wouldn’t be realistic to vote remotely in the Senate at this time.
“The nature of the negotiations require us and our staff to be around here,” Tillis said. “We can have a discussion later on about potentially modernizing” the voting process.
In a call with reporters on Monday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., the ranking member of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee whose husband is currently in the hospital being treated for COVID-19, said she had been speaking frequently to the committee’s chairman, Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., and he was “listening.”
“My view is we have to get through the next few days here because this emergency package is so important to the American people, but I think the fact that we have people that are quarantined, as we do right now, it just hits home that people are going to keep getting quarantined even if they are not sick and we have to find a way,” she said. “The technology exists.”
Kate Irby, Bryan Lowry and Brian Murphy contributed to this report.
Updates throughout with more information and comments.
This story was originally published March 23, 2020 at 9:48 PM with the headline "House Democratic leaders dash hopes of remote voting during coronavirus crisis."
