The House Freedom Caucus lost its fifth member Monday over mutual disagreements but stayed quiet as that lawmaker, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), said her piece.
Luna announced her departure Monday from the conservative right flank of the House Republican conference over its handling of her bill to allow House members to vote by proxy if they are new parents.
The caucus originated in 2015 as a group of conservative members unhappy with the way Washington is run. The caucus now is made up of 32 members from across the country who often band together, often creating a headache for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), given the small majority in the House.
A caucus known for making ruckus was unusually quiet Monday following Luna’s departure.
The Washington Examiner asked several members of the caucus about Luna’s decision to leave, but they declined to comment.
Luna is not the only member who has left the HFC in recent years, highlighting the changes to the group.
Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Randy Weber (R-TX), Ken Buck (R-CO), and Warren Davidson (R-OH) were all booted from the caucus for various reasons over the last two years. Rey. Troy Nehls (R-TX) was the last member to resign after he tried unsuccessfully to oust Davidson over his endorsement against the caucus chairman, Rep. Bob Good (R-VA).
These members were given the boot after for reasons of diverging from the caucus on certain beliefs or lack of attendance. Luna criticized the caucus as engaging in the same kind of backroom dealing that it often criticizes, as some members work to ensure that her bill does not come up for a vote.
While some members of the right flank supported Luna, many members of HFC banded together to work with leadership against her proxy bill.
Luna did not comment on any specific conversations she had with HFC members after she resigned, but she shared many of her thoughts in a letter.
“With a heavy heart, I am resigning from the Freedom Caucus,” Luna wrote.
“I cannot remain part of a caucus where a select few operate outside its guidelines, misuse its name, broker backroom deals that undermine its core values and where the lines of compromise and transaction are blurred, disparage me to the press, and encourage misrepresentation of me to the American people,” she continued.
Voting by proxy, or allowing another person to cast a vote for a lawmaker, was controversial as a pandemic-era measure allowed in the House in 2021 and 2022. Republicans have long been against this policy, but the new parent proxy voting movement has drawn significant bipartisan support.
While most members of HFC stand with Johnson in opposing proxy voting, Reps. Byron Donalds (R-FL) and Andy Ogles (R-TN) signed on to Luna’s discharge petition to force a vote on the bill.
With 218 signatures, a discharge petition will force the speaker to call a vote on the bill. After the petition reaches that threshold, the member can call a vote after seven legislative days. Luna’s bill, written with Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-C)), reached the required number of signatures on March 11, making the lawmakers eligible to bring it up.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) is one of the HFC members who is staunchly against proxy voting. As a part of the Rules Committee, he is in a position of influence to help kill the bill.
“The house is a majoritarian body, that’s what it is,” Roy told reporters last week. “That’s fine, but we’re also a body that has parties, and you have to be able to manage and control the floor.”
“We’re also supposed to be guardians of the Constitution,” the Texas conservative added. “And the Constitution does not remotely contemplate remote voting and not being present. You’re supposed to be present in the chamber.”
Leadership has stood firm with HFC members who have opposed Luna’s bill, leading to trying many options to stop its progress. The latest effort is to put a procedural rule vote on the floor this week that includes a measure to kill Luna’s discharge petition. Luna said if the rule vote includes that provision, she will vote against it. Donalds said he has not determined how he will vote. Johnson can only afford to lose two votes for the rule to pass.
“In the Speaker’s defense, he is being blackmailed into doing this… but this behavior to force someone into doing something is categorically wrong and everything we are supposed to stand against,” Luna wrote in a letter to her Republican colleagues.
Luna made the reason behind her resignation clear.
“This tactic was not just a betrayal of trust; it was a descent into the very behavior we have long condemned — a practice that we as a group, have repeatedly criticized leadership for allowing,” she wrote in her statement announcing her departure. “To those involved, I ask: Why? Why abandon the principles we’ve championed and resort to such conduct?”
Although caucus members refused to comment on the issue, one senior GOP aide shared thoughts with the Washington Examiner.
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“Luna leaving the most conservative group on the hill comes as no surprise,” the aide said. “The way she is working with Democrats to bypass the conservative majority is eerily similar to how [former Speaker Kevin] McCarthy worked with them to get his CR passed last Congress. She had no business in HFC and debatably has no place in the GOP.”
Rachel Schilke contributed to this article.