Tlaib and MTG among more than 220 House proxy voters on spending bill

Proxy voting was instituted during the Covid pandemic and is due to come to an end on 3 January, in the new Congress with Republicans controlling the House.

On Friday, as a huge winter storm bore down on Washington, threatening flights home for Christmas, 226 House members cast proxy votes on the omnibus bill.

One high-profile rightwinger was among those who voted by proxy. As reported by Business Insider, a vacation in Costa Rica meant Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia skipped in-person voting on the spending bill and other events this week including the address to Congress by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

By Saturday, Greene was taking heat not just for proxy voting, having introduced a bill to ban the practice earlier this year, but for holidaying while other Georgians endured power outages and plunging temperatures.

She was joined by another high-profile progressive, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Nine Republicans supported the bill. Seven are leaving Congress, among them Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, the two anti-Trump Republicans on the House January 6 committee.

Nancy Pelosi responded with remarks she said were probably her last as speaker.