House Democrat Tees Off On GOP Lawmaker With An Awkward Reminder About Trump

Rep. Jim McGovern said the GOP's "family values" claims are far off the fairway.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) knocked Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) on Tuesday after she declared that members of Congress “need to show up for work” as she argued against proxy voting in the chamber ― even for new parents.

“She doesn’t seem to be that upset over the fact that Donald Trump conducts most of his business from a golf course in Mar-a-Lago,” said McGovern of the president, who has thus far handed taxpayers a $26 million bill for golf outings in his second term.

McGovern’s remarks arrived prior to the House advancing a rule ― backed by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) and Brittany Pettersen (D-Colo.), both of whom are new parents ― to allow the practice of voting by proxy for up to 12 weeks or more after the birth or adoption of a congressperson’s child.

It marked a defeat for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) as a procedural vote that looked to block the effort failed.

Foxx, the chair of the House rules committee chair who has previously slammed her colleagues for leaning on proxy voting, turned to the Merriam-Webster dictionary’s definition of Congress to stress that the chamber is about the “act of coming together and meeting.”