How much the House has voted remotely during COVID
01 July 2021
Data: Brookings Institution/Clerk of the House of Representatives; Chart: Will Chase/Axios
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) recently worked from home and voted by proxy after having knee replacement surgery, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says she will extend the practice for all members into August.
Why it matters: Congress instituted the system — allowing members to assign someone else to vote for them — as a precaution against spreading the coronavirus. Since then, its use in the House has vacillated, according to data from the House Clerk collected by the Brookings Institution.
- Proxy voting has let members vote if they couldn't or chose not to show up in person because of COVID-19 or didn't want to return to the Capitol after the Jan. 6 attack, as Brookings researchers note.
- It's also allowed lawmakers to cast a vote while dealing with long- and short-term health issues or while on family leave.
By the numbers: As of June 23, 43 members had active vote-by-proxy letters.
- At the peak, 138 members had active letters.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.