Democrats, fresh off their sweeping victories in last week’s elections, faced bitter criticism and recriminations on Wednesday from within their own ranks after 11 of their members missed a vote on the impeachment of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The absences, which boosted Republicans’ successful effort to block the impeachment on Tuesday, cast a shadow over what was otherwise a triumphant week for Democrats that was supposed to be focused on savoring their electoral wins, welcoming new members and plotting out their agenda for when they take the helm of both chambers of Congress.
Instead, Representative Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the No. 2 Democrat in charge of tracking votes among her members, began a closed-door party meeting on Wednesday morning scolding lawmakers who had been absent for the impeachment vote, as others chastised their colleagues in public.
“Show up and do your job,” Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed, Democrat of Michigan, said bluntly on CNN Tuesday evening.
Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove, Democrat of California, appeared to be seething as she left the Capitol following the vote Tuesday night, telling the MeidasTouch Network that Democrats had squandered the opportunity to push the impeachment charges forward over Republican opposition. “People should have gotten their raggedy selves up these steps to vote,” she said.
Some senior Democrats said that more anger should be directed at Mr. Hegseth and the Republicans who banded together to save his job.
“People should have been here, right?” Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Rules Committee, said. “You know what people should be outraged by, is the fact that we have a secretary of war crimes who’s still there.”
Still, the episode raised questions about Democratic leaders’ hold on their caucus at a critical time. Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, said in the aftermath of the vote that he had yet to talk to members of his floor staff to find out what had happened. By Wednesday, he told reporters he had spoken to some of the absentees, many of whom had released statements explaining what had kept them from voting.
The absences muddled an opportunity for newly empowered Democrats to showcase their willingness to challenge the Trump administration even before taking power in January.
Republican leaders had worried privately that defections or absences by their members could allow the impeachment effort to succeed, particularly after many of them suffered embarrassing electoral defeats and had no political future to worry about.
Instead, they stayed united as Democratic no-shows helped Republicans prevail on a vote of 211 to 204, sending the impeachment charges to the Judiciary Committee and effectively killing them.
Eleven Democrats missed the vote, while seven Republicans did. Had all of those lawmakers voted along party lines, the G.O.P. effort to shelve the impeachment effort would still have succeeded.
Still, it was an embarrassing stumble that left many Democrats livid.
During her remarks at a closed-door caucus meeting Wednesday morning, Ms. Clark told Democratic colleagues she was disappointed in those who had missed the vote, according to a person present for the remarks who was granted anonymity to describe the private discussion.
Ms. Clark excused members kept away by serious illnesses or emergencies, but admonished those who had arrived late, regardless of the reason, telling them that the most fundamental responsibility of serving in Congress was to show up and vote.
The 11 Democrats who did not vote on the impeachment motion were Representatives Julia Brownley, Lou Correa and Nancy Pelosi, all of California; Laura Gillen of New York; Steven Horsford of Nevada; Jonathan L. Jackson of Illinois; Brittany Pettersen of Colorado; Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico; Haley Stevens of Michigan; Marilyn Strickland of Washington; and Frederica Wilson of Florida.
Their explanations for missing the vote varied.
Several cited traffic delays, including a handful who had attended a fund-raising event near the Capitol hosted by Ms Clark. Ms. Stansbury said a traffic incident roughly a mile from the Capitol prevented her and others from returning on time.
Members of Ms. Pelosi’s staff said she was in California receiving a lifetime achievement award from a veterans group.
Mr. Correa said he was recovering from a medical procedure, while Mr. Horsford said a personal emergency had delayed his arrival.
Some, including Ms. Brownley, accused Republicans of closing the vote early to prevent Democrats from voting, though the roll call scheduled to last for 15 minutes lasted for 27 minutes. Ms. Pettersen, who last year returned to the Capitol with her newborn baby four weeks after giving birth to vote against the president’s domestic policy bill, said that she and others had been “denied the ability to vote” on the impeachment resolution. She accused Republican leaders of malfeasance.
Other Democrats suggested that no excuse was sufficient. Representative Pat Ryan, Democrat of New York, said he had undergone back surgery on Monday and “checked myself out of the hospital this morning to make sure I voted to impeach Hegseth.”
Democrats had previously scrambled in dramatic fashion to ensure they would have the votes to weigh in on impeachments. In 2024, Representative Al Green of Texas rushed from the hospital after undergoing emergency abdominal surgery and cast a decisive vote — still dressed in a hospital gown and socks — against impeaching Alejandro Mayorkas, President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s homeland security secretary.
Asked what he thought about the Democratic absences on Tuesday given the elaborate lengths he had gone to cast his vote two years ago, Mr. Green grinned wryly.
“Believe me,” he said. “That came to mind when I saw that.”
Catie Edmondson contributed reporting.
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