An Attack on Pregnant Workers at the 5th Circuit Could Unleash Chaos Across the Country

Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. In an astonishing jump in legal logic that left constitutional scholars aghast, the district court held that the PWFA had been enacted unconstitutionally because Congress had allowed members to use proxy voting to establish a quorum, violating the U.S. Constitution’s quorum clause. The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America submitted an amicus brief to the court, pleading: “Allowing the district court’s ruling to stand would imperil veterans’ legislation and risk unnecessary challenges to settled programs, benefits, and funding upon which millions of this nation’s veterans rely.” Not only would an affirmative ruling undermine the entire spending package, but it would necessitate the conclusion that Congress lacks the authority to set its own rules about procedure. Legal scholars and constitutional law experts have gathered decades of overwhelming historical evidence for the court, explaining that the use of proxy voting by Congress to establish a quorum is clearly permissible under the quorum clause, which has only one rule: Each house of Congress must have “a Majority … to do Business.” As they explained in their brief, the Framers of the Constitution “did not debate the merits of proxy as opposed to in-person voting and did not prescribe any particular method for ascertaining the presence of a majority.” That’s by design, to allow Congress to adjust its procedural rules as circumstances shift. The 5th Circuit can either overturn the district court’s ruling and keep the PWFA intact or unleash a legal Pandora’s box in order to needlessly deprive pregnant workers of their rights.