Not Voting

On the evening of Tuesday, November 10, the House voted on a motion to refer eight articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to the Judiciary Committee. Referral is how a chamber disposes of an impeachment resolution without voting on it. Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican who wrote the articles, called it “a procedural motion to kill the resolution.” The motion passed 211 to 204. Massie was the only Republican to vote no. Every Democrat who voted, 203 of them, voted with him.

Eleven Democrats did not vote:

Julia Brownley (California)
Lou Correa (California)
Laura Gillen (New York)
Steven Horsford (Nevada)
Jonathan Jackson (Illinois)
Nancy Pelosi (California)
Brittany Pettersen (Colorado)
Melanie Stansbury (New Mexico)
Haley Stevens (Michigan)
Marilyn Strickland (Washington)
Frederica Wilson (Florida)

Seven Republicans also missed it. That matters, and I will come back to it.

My claim is narrow. Attendance is the minimum a representative owes the people who sent them, and a reason given after the vote is worth less than a reason given before it. One of the eleven met that standard. Most did not.

The Arithmetic

A motion that ties fails. Had seven of the eleven absent Democrats voted no, the motion would have failed 211 to 211, and the resolution would have stayed on the floor. Had all eleven voted, it would have failed 211 to 215. Several of the absent members said afterward they would have voted no.

The honest version needs the other column. If all seven absent Republicans had also voted, and voted with their party, referral would have passed 218 to 215. Full attendance on both sides would not have changed the result. What the Democrats lost was not a majority. It was a night when the other side had left the door open and they were not there to walk through it.

Nor would a failed motion have removed Hegseth. It would have forced a direct vote on the articles, and removal requires two-thirds of the Senate. The articles now sit in committee, and Massie leaves Congress in January. Hakeem Jeffries has said he supports a new resolution when the next Congress convenes, and Pettersen said she expects Democrats to impeach Hegseth in January.

None of that excuses the absences. The result may have been out of reach. The effort was not. A minority party that wants to be trusted with a majority in January cannot give less than everything in November. A procedural vote on whether to impeach a cabinet secretary during a war is not a quorum call. The resolution was privileged, which meant the House had to act on it within two legislative days. The vote was not a surprise.

The Reasons

The explanations fall into three groups.

Given before the vote. Correa’s office announced in advance that he would miss votes. “I will undergo a medical procedure here in Orange County,” he said, and added that he would have voted against the motion. This is the acceptable case, and it should be judged as one. Illness is not negligence, and Correa did the thing a constituent can reasonably ask: he said where he would be and why, before the roll was called. Horsford’s office cited a “personal emergency.” An emergency cannot be scheduled around, and I will not ask for its details. I take it at its word.

Given after the vote. Stansbury, Jackson, Strickland, Gillen, and Pettersen cited traffic. Stansbury said she was “blocked from entering the Capitol to vote due a traffic incident and a police escort of a bus during the vote.” Strickland’s chief of staff, who was driving her, said she missed it by one minute. Pettersen said she was “denied the ability to vote on this motion,” and her spokesperson said Republican leadership closed the vote early. Brownley said she and colleagues were “rushing to the floor” when it closed. Axios reported that several members were returning from an Elect Democratic Women reception for incoming members, scheduled from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at a food hall about a mile and a half from the Capitol. The vote was scheduled for 5:30. By the timestamps on CBS News’s live blog, it opened at about 5:39 and the result was announced at about 6:08.

Traffic is not a reason. It is a description of what happens when someone leaves too late. Traffic in Washington on a weekday evening is not an unforeseeable event. Neither is a vote at the time the leadership said it would be held. A reception for incoming members is a courtesy; a roll call on impeachment is the job. Voting is the one duty no staffer can perform for a member, and there was nothing on that calendar more important. If Republican leadership closed the vote faster than usual, that is a fair complaint about Republican leadership. It is also exactly the kind of maneuver a narrow minority should expect and plan against.

Pelosi was in San Francisco to receive a veterans’ award. Her office said she supports impeachment and would have voted no. That is a scheduling decision made in advance, and it is a defensible one only if the member has decided the vote does not need her. On a vote that seven members could have decided, it did.

Not given. As of Wednesday morning, Stevens and Wilson had not explained their absences.

Jackson and Stansbury entered “NO” votes in the Congressional Record after the vote closed. A Record statement documents a position. It does not change the count.

What Is Owed

Voters spent the last year doing what they were asked to do. They knocked doors, gave money, and turned out on November 3. The members-elect they chose will not be seated until January. The members who missed this vote are serving terms won in 2024 and are still the ones holding the cards. Showing up for a roll call is a small fraction of what their voters did to put them there.

Members of the House ask voters to turn out every two years. Voters have traffic, receptions, and second shifts too. A member who would not accept “it wasn’t convenient” from a voter on Election Day should not offer it to one on a roll call.

The party’s position on Hegseth is not in doubt. No Democrat voted for referral. A Democrat who believes he should stay in office would be in disagreement with the entire caucus, and I would question that judgment. But the roll call does not record belief. It records yes, no, and not voting, and on Tuesday “not voting” did the same work as a yes. A party label does not cast a ballot. It does not reelect anyone, either. A Democrat who expects the D beside their name to carry them is mistaken. The voters who did the work this fall are not content with the status quo, and that includes the status quo inside their own party. Tuesday should be read as a warning.

Sydney Kamlager-Dove said it plainly: “There is no reason why we should have lost this vote because of attendance issues.” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez compared the House to a restaurant job: “we got to clock in and do our work here.” She also allowed that some members may have had legitimate reasons. I agree with both halves. Some of these reasons are probably legitimate. That is the argument for stating them, and stating them before the vote, the way Correa did. An absence explained in advance is a disclosure. An absence explained afterward is a defense.

On November 4, the morning after he won his Senate race, James Talarico told Dana Perino on Fox News that voters should not trust anything a politician says, himself included. “What you should do is look at my record,” he said. “Actions, in my view, speak a lot louder than words.” That standard applies here. Voters do not need to hear how hard their representatives will fight. A roll call is where the fighting is recorded.

This is why the pressure has to continue past Election Day. The work of a voter does not end at the ballot box, and the work of an elected official does not end at the swearing-in. The Democrats arriving in January will be judged the way the fruit test judges anyone: by what grows. Ask your representative where they will be on the next close vote, and ask before it is held.

Stansbury’s “NO” is in the Congressional Record now, dated after the gavel, next to a tally of 211 to 204.