Republican's Civil War

Speaker Johnson won't let new parents vote in congress.

The big political headlines today are the special elections in Wisconsin and Florida. But a smaller House development is worth flagging — and it might turn into a much bigger story.

House Republicans were set to vote on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, a bill that would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote. Speaker Mike Johnson has called it a top legislative priority.

Instead, he canceled the vote — and suspended the House’s legislative business for the entire week.

Why? Because every Democrat and nine Republicans voted down the rules package needed to even bring the SAVE Act (and other bills) to the floor.

Here’s what went down:

• A bipartisan proposal would allow new parents in Congress to vote by proxy for up to 12 weeks after the birth or adoption of a child.

• Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) and Brittany Pettersen (D-CO) co-sponsored it as a practical, family-friendly update.

• Speaker Johnson tried to quietly block the proposal by slipping a poison pill into the House rules package.

• The move backfired: Nine Republicans joined all Democrats to tank the package, delivering Johnson a public defeat.

• In response, Johnson pulled the plug on the week’s legislative schedule and sent lawmakers home to "regroup."

Why this matters

Most of this is the kind of procedural drama that rarely breaks through to voters. The SAVE Act will likely still pass. But this mess makes two things clear:

1. Speaker Johnson is committed to an anti-family agenda — so much so that he’d rather kill parental proxy voting than pass his top-priority bills.

2. His grip on power is slipping. It took nine Republicans to sink the rules package — and under new House rules, it takes exactly nine Republicans to force a vote to oust the Speaker.

3. More Republican chaos. This is yet another sign that Republicans aren’t capable of passing legislation.

There’s bigger news coming this week. But this little explosion over parental proxy voting reveals a lot about what today’s Republican leadership really stands for — and why it keeps failing.