Colorado Democrat Brittany Pettersen gained an unexpected ally after House Speaker Mike Johnson canceled the chamber’s floor activity for the rest of the week after failing to quash her bid to let new parents vote remotely.

Two days after the Republican speaker suffered a rare loss on a procedural vote designed to kill a bipartisan resolution led by Pettersen and Florida Republican Anna Paulina Luna, none other than President Donald Trump voiced his support for the lawmakers’ proposal to authorize proxy voting by moms and dads caring for newborns.

“You’re having a baby, you should be able to call in and vote. I’m in favor of that,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on April 3. “I don’t know why it’s so controversial,” he added.

By the next morning, however, it looked like Trump had reversed course and told Johnson to handle the dispute over a practice the Louisiana Republican has long argued is unconstitutional. “‘Mike, you have my proxy on proxy voting,'” Johnson posted to X, apparently quoting a recent conversation with the president.

Only the 13th House member to give birth while serving in Congress, Pettersen joined with Luna — who had a child in August 2023 — to draft a resolution to allow new parents up to 12 weeks of voting by proxy after the birth of their child. An included provision would let pregnant lawmakers start their proxy voting early if diagnosed with a serious medical condition or placed under travel restrictions, like Pettersen faced at the beginning of the year before her son’s Jan. 25 birth.

The resolution’s other lead sponsors are Democrat Sara Jacobs of California and Republican Mike Lawler of New York, with another four Democrats and four Republicans listed as original co-sponsors.

After GOP leadership let the bill idle and made it known they didn’t want it to come to a vote, Luna filed a discharge petition, a rarely successful procedural move to circumvent party bosses that automatically forces a floor vote on a piece of legislation if at least 218 House members — an outright majority — sign on. And that’s what happened, after a handful of Republicans defied the speaker and added their names to the petition.

In response, Johnson and other Republican opponents of proxy voting took the unprecedented step of including a provision to prevent the discharge petition from activating in a package that contained rules for considering bills that are part of Trump’s legislative agenda, effectively daring Republicans to vote against it.

Trump’s backing — and subsequent change of tune — capped a contentious few days that landed Pettersen and her 9-week-old son Sam in the national spotlight for the second time this year, following the pair’s surprise cross-country flight at the end of February to vote against the Republicans’ budget resolution a month after she’d given birth.

This time, after nine Republicans joined Democrats on April 1 to vote down a legislative rules package that included a measure to block the petition to require a vote on Luna’s and Pettersen’s resolution, a triumphant Pettersen delivered a message to Johnson that most news outlets couldn’t carry without bleeping a portion.

“We said don’t f— with moms,” Pettersen told reporters while cradling her infant in her arms on the steps of the Capitol.

She posted a more family-friendly version of her message on X after the vote, along with a video clip of her asking fellow lawmakers to support the resolution by voting down the Johnson-backed measure.

“Today, my son Sam and I showed Speaker Johnson why you don’t mess with moms,” Pettersen said. “Thanks to overwhelming bipartisan support, we stopped the Speaker’s attempt to kill our resolution to allow new parents in Congress to vote remotely.”

Pettersen told Colorado Politics with a laugh that she could have been more explicit in her social media post but stood by the message.

“Nobody fights harder than a mom, and when you have myself and Rep. Luna partnering alongside our other co-leads, we have a powerful coalition that’s determined to change things in Washington, so I guess that’s where my colorful language comes from,” she said as she waited to board a flight back to Colorado.

As her son cooed and squirmed in her arms, Pettersen had delivered a speech to fellow lawmakers before the rules vote, describing the choices she and other new parents have grappled with while serving in Congress.

“It is unfathomable that in 2025 we have not modernized Congress to address these very unique challenges that members face, and these life events where our voices should still be heard our constituents are still be represented,” she said as Sam added an occasional squeak. “But we’re asking you to continue to stand with us because no mom or dad should be in the position that I was an so many parents who found themselves in. It is anti-woman, it’s anti-family, and we need to come together to make sure that we kill this rule and have the opportunity to pass this resolution to make sure that new parents have the ability to continue to represent their constituents.”

Pettersen told Colorado Politics that she’d planned all along to return to DC in another week but had hoped to have at least one week of proxy voting if their resolution had come up for a vote, but Johnson prevented that from happening.

“This is an issue that isn’t going away just because of these unprecedented attempts to stifle our voices,” Pettersen said. She added, referring to Johnson: “I’m shocked at the lengths that he’s going to, to kill this.”

Johnson dug in his heels after the vote — telling reporters Republican leaders planned to “regroup and come back, and we’ll have to do this again” — but Luna said on X hours after Trump’s statement of support that she and the speaker had spoken and had a possible compromise in sight.

Luna posted that she and Johnson “discussed limiting the vote to just new moms who cannot physically travel in event of emergency etc. This is smart. Remember: only 13 in US history.”

Johnson appeared to dash any hopes of a negotiated settlement hours later, posting this response to his conversation with Trump: “Democrats tried proxy voting before and it was terribly abused. We cannot open that Pandora’s box again.”

Before Trump weighed in, Pettersen emphasized that she was “still fighting or the people that come after me,” noting that Florida Republican Kat Cammack had announced a week earlier that she was pregnant.

“This is in their very narrow majority — they need every vote — and they also have another male member whose child is due in the near future, so, you know, this is an initiative that impacts all of us on both sides of the aisle,” Pettersen said, adding that Johnson would be “much better off just letting us vote.”

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