Democrats lashed out at their own colleagues after 11 House Democrats missed a vote on Tuesday to advance the impeachment of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, effectively allowing Republicans to block the effort for now.
Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rep.-elect Richard Ojeda (D-N.C.) and Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed (D-Mich.) were among those condemning the absences.
“We knew that this vote was coming, so people should have gotten their raggedy selves up these steps to vote. There is no reason why we should have lost this vote because of attendance issues,” Kamlager-Dove told MeidasTouch’s Pablo Manríquez.
“So, shame on folks who are not here,” she added. “Because these people [Republicans] lost. They lost, and they still found a way to show up to table this bill. Shameful.”
Ocasio-Cortez told CNN’s Manu Raju that lawmakers had a responsibility to turn up for work, while acknowledging some may have had legitimate reasons for not being there.
“The people send us here to do a job,” she said. “I don’t know if anyone had any real health issues or anything significant to that respect, so I want to leave room for that. But that being said, at the end of the day, we’re here to do a job. And the same way I had to clock in when I worked at a restaurant, we got to clock in and do our work here.”
She also told Manríquez: “I don’t know why people weren’t here. Someone may have a health issue. I don’t know. But obviously, having a vote like that on attendance is hard. That hurts.”
Ojeda was similarly scathing.
“I say shame on them for not showing up. I mean, this is important. They had an opportunity to finally get rid of this buffoonery that we have, and they failed. So you know what? I think the 120th Congress, I think we’ll take that up,” he told CNN’s Laura Coates.
And when CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked El-Sayed what he would say to the absent Democrats, he offered a blunt response: “You should show up and do your job.”
The 11 House Democrats who missed the vote were Reps. Julia Brownley (Calif.), Lou Correa (Calif.), Laura Gillen (N.Y.), Steven Horsford (Nev.), Jonathan Jackson (Ill.), Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), Brittany Pettersen (Colo.), Melanie Stansbury (N.M.), Haley Stevens (Mich.), Marilyn Strickland (Wash.) and Frederica Wilson (Fla.).
Several offered explanations for their absences.
Stansbury, Jackson, Gillen and Strickland cited traffic problems outside the Capitol.
A spokesperson for Pelosi said she was attending a Veterans Day event, while Horsford’s office cited a personal emergency. Correa said he was undergoing a medical procedure.