- Rep. Greene introduced a bill to ban proxy voting, which lets lawmakers vote on behalf of one another.
- But she's voted remotely 22 times, and cast votes for her Republican colleagues 135 times.
- Her office blamed the "COVID-19 bioweapon pandemic" for proxy voting.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, like most of her Republican colleagues, says she's opposed to proxy voting.
"The Founders clearly intended for members of Congress to meet, debate, and vote in person," reads a March 7 letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signed by Greene and 37 other Republicans. "Working Americans in every part of the country are expected to show up to their job in person. Members of Congress should be held to the same standard."
On March 8, Greene introduced a bill that would, among other changes to voting rules, entirely eliminate proxy voting, which allows members of Congress to have a colleague vote on their behalf.
The remote voting procedure was instituted in May 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, despite uniform Republican opposition. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy led a failed legal effort against proxy voting.
But Greene has voted remotely 22 times and cast 135 votes on behalf of fellow Republicans, according to an Insider review of over 700 roll call votes taken by the House between May 20, 2020 and April 30, 2022.
Insider repeatedly reached out to Greene's office for comment, asking why she opposes the practice and how she would answer the charge that she's hypocritical for using it even as she denounces it.
In response, spokesman Nick Dyer told Insider that the practice was "brought to the House through the COVID-19 bioweapon pandemic."
"Now that COVID is over and we're back to normal life, Congresswoman Greene is ready to end proxy voting," he added.
The Georgia Republican's go-to buddy for when she can't make it to a vote herself appears to be Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, who's cast all 22 of her proxy votes. Both have come under fire for their ties to white nationalists, and both were stripped of their committee assignments for their inflammatory online rhetoric last year.
According to a review of the data, Greene's absences from Congress included a nearly week-long stretch in mid-April 2021 — the same week that she and Gosar floated the idea of a caucus dedicated to upholding "uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions" — as well as two absences at the end of July 2021.
And as recently as early March, the congresswoman cast dozens of votes for fellow Republicans, including 53 proxy votes for Rep. Jody Hice of Georgia, 47 for Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, and 35 for Gosar.
Gaetz and Gosar are among the 15 Republicans who've used proxy voting more than 100 times, while Hice is actively campaigning for a different job, challenging Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger in the state's May 24 Republican primary.
Despite Greene's inconsistencies on proxy voting, Democrats use the procedure far more than Republicans, often for reasons unrelated to the pandemic.
Democratic Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia, who's cast over 2,200 votes for his colleagues, told Insider in a recent interview that he thinks proxy voting should remain in a "responsible form," but acknowledged that its use has become "casual" over time.