Democrats likely to bring back COVID-era proxy voting if they take back the House

Here we go again. Proxy voting was sold as an emergency measure in the spring of 2020, back when nobody knew what this virus actually did and Congress was scrambling to figure out how to function. Five years later, with COVID about as dangerous as a bad flu season, Democrats want to bring it back the second they think they'll have the gavel. That tells you the emergency was never really the point.

The job of a member of Congress is to show up. Vote. Debate. Sit in committee and answer for what you're doing. That's not some quaint tradition, it's the actual work. Proxy voting let members phone it in, literally, sometimes for months at a stretch, while still collecting a paycheck and casting votes on bills that affect 340 million people. Some members used it to skip town for fundraisers or campaign swings. That's not democracy adapting to a crisis. That's a loophole dressed up as a public health measure.

What's telling is the timing of this signal. Nobody is pointing to a new health emergency. There's no CDC directive, no outbreak driving this. It's simply that Democrats liked having the option and would like to have it again, assuming voters hand them the House back. That's the whole justification, near as anyone can tell from the reporting.

If your case for a rule depends on there being no crisis to justify it, you don't have a case. Show up to work. That's not a partisan standard, it's the baseline, and it shouldn't need restating in 2026.