Rep. Roy on First Arguments for the Proxy Lawsuit against Nancy Pelosi

Today, I was proud to be one of the plaintiffs arguing through our counsel Chuck Cooper to Federal Judge Contreras in the United States Federal District for the District of Columbia in defense of the Constitution and against the Democrats' so-called proxy voting scheme.

I spent the afternoon listening to arguments, and I am very confident that, whatever the result in the District Court, our strong arguments presented will ultimately carry the day. Namely, it is clear that our Constitution requires the presence of members of Congress to carry out their Constitutional duty, that the votes of members AND constituents are diluted under proxy voting, and that the Constitutional delegation of the duty to vote for our constituents in our Republican form of government cannot be delegated to another.

We should remember that our founders found it important to meet despite the extraordinary impact of Yellow Fever in 1793 in which 5,000 of 50,000 Philadelphians died. They did so because a mere 4 years into our Constitutional Republic, they realized that the language of "presence" and the need to meet in person were in fact central to the text of the Constitution and the idea of representation under our Republic.

Rather than having Democrat members literally voting from boats and not showing up to do their job, the American people deserve the full attention and work of the United States Congress. Republicans are showing up in full, Democrats are not - and the result is we are not having the hearings we should be having about the impact of the Coronavirus, the lawlessness risking the safety and security of American communities, the need to secure our borders, and the need to confront the increasing adversarial actions of China against the interest of the United States.

Members of Congress should meet in person and vote in person, and the Democrat scheme of proxy voting is plainly unconstitutional.