House Democrats‘ midterm euphoria came to a crashing halt on Capitol Hill this week, as two voting setbacks pierced the party’s victory lap.
The caucus failed to defeat a Republican effort to kill articles of impeachment against Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, a measure cutting some veterans’ benefits to increase benefits for other claims passed without Democratic opposition.
Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) told the Washington Examiner that while he has “tremendous confidence” in the Democratic leadership team, the caucus has to ensure similar mistakes do not happen when Democrats take control of the chamber next year.
“We have to make sure that these things are not happening in January, you know, that we build an operation and we build systems to make sure we’re counting the votes, we’re making sure where people are, and we’re asking for roll call votes when we need to,” Crow said. “So, you know, lessons learned. We will be ready to go in January.”
Crow’s comments came after the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act, which has long been opposed by Democratic leadership, passed on the House floor after Democrats did not request a roll call — allowing the bill to pass without members voting on the record.
Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA) accused Republicans of pushing through the legislation as discussions were ongoing among floor staff over proposed changes offered by the GOP, therefore taking Democrats away from the podium to object to the voice vote.
Republicans, meanwhile, say Democrats simply made an error, their second in as many days on the House floor.
On Tuesday, 11 Democrats missed the vote on Rep. Thomas Massie’s (R-KY) articles of impeachment against War Secretary Pete Hegseth, allowing the articles to be referred to committee to effectively kill the effort. The chamber voted 211-204 along party lines, except for Massie’s vote, to block the impeachment.
Clark told the Washington Examiner that she viewed the incidents as “two very different issues,” but acknowledged there is a theme of Republicans playing “dirty” politics.
“One is that, yes, members need to be there and need to be on time, but the real issue was that Republicans, only one was willing to — even if we had had full attendance, that bill would have lost because only one member was willing to stand up against Pete Hegseth, his incompetence in this war, and that’s the real story of that vote,” Clark explained. “And today was just — that was a dirty pool by the majority in trying to get a bill through when they feared they didn’t have the votes to do it in a straightforward way.”
After the Hegseth vote, multiple Democrats said missing votes sends a poor organizational message as the caucus prepares to take the chamber in January.
“It’s not good. We need people to be here in time to vote, so we can win votes,” Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) told the Washington Examiner. “Hopefully, it never happens again.”
Several of the 11 Democrats who missed the vote released statements with reasons for their absence. Reps. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) and Marilyn Strickland (D-WA) said they were stuck in traffic, while Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV) said he had a personal emergency.
A political event down the street on Tuesday evening coincided with the impeachment vote, according to multiple reports. Some members who missed the vote got caught in traffic on the way back from the Elect Democratic Women event, according to Axios.
Stansbury and Rep. Julia Brownley (D-CA), who also missed the vote, each sit on the group’s leadership board, while Clark, who is in charge of organizing votes, is a member of the group’s founding board.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) called it “absolutely unacceptable” that Democrats could lose the impeachment vote because of absences.
“We got to do our job,” Ocasio-Cortez told the Washington Examiner. “We got to show up. We got to get these things done, and that’s just the fact of the matter. We got to do the job. We got to clock in.”
HOUSE DEMOCRATS ACCUSE GOP OF ‘DIRTY POOL’ TACTICS AS THEY FLUB SECOND VOTE IN TWO DAYS
In a video statement on Wednesday, Stansbury apologized for missing the vote, saying she “definitely should have been there sooner” and vowing that “this will never happen again.”
Democrats have just over 50 days before they take the majority in the lower chamber after a sweeping midterm win, going into 2027 with north of 250 seats in the House.
Continue reading...
[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
