Eleven Democrats Skip Vote, Hegseth Impeachment Dies

The House voted 211-204 on Tuesday to bury eight articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in the Judiciary Committee, where they can sit indefinitely. Eleven House Democrats didn't show up. The margin was seven votes.

The articles, introduced by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, accuse Hegseth of waging war in Iran without congressional approval, ignoring laws about minimizing civilian casualties, and directing the Defense Department to carry out extrajudicial killings. They also allege abuses of power and illegal military operations. Massie called the vote "a procedural motion to kill the resolution." He was the only Republican to oppose it.

Who Didn't Show Up

The absent Democrats were Julia Brownley, Lou Correa, Nancy Pelosi, Laura Gillen, Steven Horsford, Jonathan Jackson, Brittany Pettersen, Melanie Stansbury, Haley Stevens, Marilyn Strickland and Frederica Wilson. Seven Republicans also missed it, eighteen representatives in all. Had the Democrats been there, they'd have had the numbers to defeat the procedural move and force a full House vote on impeachment as early as this week.

The explanations came fast and didn't match. Strickland, Jackson, Stansbury and Gillen blamed a traffic delay in Washington, DC. Pelosi said she was in her home state for a veterans event, which CNN reported was in San Francisco. Correa said he was in California before a health procedure. Horsford's office cited a personal emergency. Pettersen, who said she helped introduce articles of impeachment against Hegseth in April, said she'd been "denied the ability to vote on this motion" and didn't elaborate. Jackson and Stansbury said they'd formally recorded their opposition in the Congressional Record, which doesn't change the official count. Stevens, Brownley and Wilson offered no immediate comment.

Stevens had criticized the Trump administration for launching the war on Iran with Israel and sought more congressional oversight. Days before the November 3 midterms, after losing the Democratic primary for Michigan's open Senate seat to Abdul El-Sayed, she endorsed Republican Mike Rogers against her own party's nominee. Wilson, 83, attended a housing project groundbreaking in Miami-Dade County on Monday. Wilson and Brownley, like Stevens, had demanded the administration seek congressional approval for the fighting.

The Rules of the Game

Democrats say they'd have lost anyway. Republicans control the floor, so they could have held the vote open for their own missing members. A later vote Tuesday night showed Republicans had members in town who missed the first one. Had everyone made it, the tally would still have failed 216 to 215.

That's the machinery. The majority writes the procedure, holds the gavel, and decides how long a vote stays open. The people who wanted to stop the war got a lesson in who owns the clock.

The Outrage and the Promise

Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove of California said: "We knew that this vote was coming, so people should have gotten their raggedy selves up these steps to vote." She added: "There is no reason why we should have lost this vote because of attendance issues." Senator-elect El-Sayed said: "You should show up and do your job."

Commentators pointed at Hakeem Jeffries, expected to become speaker in January. Krystal Ball called it "a major Hakeem Jeffries fail" and said: "You could have impeached the war criminal Pete Hegseth but Dems didn't show up to vote." Laura Bassett said: "Jeffries didn't even whip the vote. He told people to 'vote their conscience', and 11 members of his caucus didn't show up. This is why people want a stronger leader."

The promise is next year. Democrats take control of the House and Senate on January 3, about seven weeks from now. Pettersen said Democrats would "impeach Hegseth" next year "and neither (Mike) Johnson nor (Donald) Trump will be able to stop us." Jeffries said he'd consult members: "We'll have that conversation at the appropriate time."

The ceiling on that promise is low. A successful House vote only triggers a Senate trial, and conviction needs two-thirds, meaning Democrats would likely need about a dozen Republicans. Only eight officials, all federal judges, have ever been convicted by the Senate. Trump was impeached twice, in December 2019 and January 2021, and acquitted both times.

Trump cheered the result online, saying the effort had "miserably FAILED!" Meanwhile the White House warned Rep. Robert Garcia, incoming Oversight chairman, in a letter signed by counsel Will Scharf, that the administration "will not be extorted" as it cautions against coming investigations.

The war goes on while the paperwork moves between committees.