Riding high from midterms, House Democrats confront early political stumbles - USA Today
WASHINGTON — Fresh off their midterm rout, Democrats in the House of Representatives are already straining to move past back-to-back snafus that angered their base and caused frustration among lawmakers.
Earlier this week, they failed to impeach Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth after roughly a dozen members of their caucus missed a key procedural vote, with some citing a traffic jam. A day later, no Democrat objected to a GOP bill that critics say could hurt veterans with disabilities, allowing it to pass by voice vote.
In a House still controlled by Republicans, it's an open question whether Democrats could have ultimately prevailed in either instance. But the swift blowback to the blunders was a stark reminder of the high expectations that many liberal voters, freshly energized from a blue wave, are placing on members of Congress, even before their new majorities take over in January.
“Everyone here should know better," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, told USA TODAY. "There's just no circumstance in which these things should be occurring."
Despite the magnitude of the Democrats' midterm victory, it was largely seen as a repudiation of President Donald Trump. Lawmakers acknowledge the next two years will pose a critical test as they look to hold onto the voters that swept them back into power.
With control of roughly 260 House seats in the new year, Democrats will enjoy a lot more political cushion compared to the treacherously small margin Republicans have become used to. But that doesn’t mean there won’t still be "complexities and additional responsibilities" they should already be contending with, Ocasio-Cortez said.
"I’ve seen both. They both require an extreme amount of technical precision and execution," she said. "That must be the expectation."
On Tuesday, Democrats were gearing up to move toward impeaching Hegseth, one of Trump’s most scrutinized Cabinet officials. Though the vote wouldn’t have removed him from office, it would have been a step toward teeing up a Senate trial. Many Democrats saw it as a unique political opportunity.
A maverick Republican, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, bucked his party by reintroducing articles of impeachment and moving to force a vote on them, opening the door for Democrats to notch a significant and high-profile post-election win that signaled the seriousness of their opposition to Trump's handling of the war in Iran.
Instead, Republicans used a procedural gambit to effectively kill the resolution 211-204, succeeding in part because 11 Democrats missed the vote. Seven Republicans were also absent.
One truant Democratic congressman was recovering from open-heart surgery. Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, who is retiring at the end of the year, was in San Francisco for an event honoring local veterans. It was the Democrats who said they were unexpectedly stuck in traffic, however, who drew the most severe recriminations from frustrated colleagues and voters alike.
Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-New Mexico, who said she was delayed by a road incident, ultimately issued an apology.
"There is no one who is more disappointed in myself than me that I was not here the moment that gavel dropped," she said in a video she posted on social media. She stressed that she has been a lead advocate for impeaching Hegseth "from the very beginning" and said Democrats would try again in the new Congress.
Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wisconsin, defended his colleagues who missed the vote, saying Washington was "designed to make it hard to get to the Capitol quickly."
"Unless we put a tracker inside each and every one of us that gives us shocks," he told USA TODAY, "the whip team couldn’t have been in the mind of every member who wasn’t nearby."
"I do believe that on important votes, we have to be present," Rep. Ro Khanna, D-California, told USA TODAY.
The day following the Hegseth debacle dealt another blow to House Democrats.
On Veterans Day, Republicans were starting the process of considering the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act, a sweeping legislative package that has divided veterans groups. The bill's critics have denounced its proposed changes to the VA disability rating schedule, saying they would eliminate critical benefits.
California Rep. Mark Takano, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, said he and his staff were away negotiating technical changes when Republicans announced the vote on the bill. Normally, a member of the minority party must request a recorded vote, but no Democrat stood up to do so, letting the bill to pass by voice vote.
Takano called the move "dirty pool," while GOP leadership said Democrats should have been paying closer attention to the action on the House floor.
Rep. Jim McGovern, poised to lead the all-important Rules Committee in the new Congress, told USA TODAY the scuffle over the veterans bill was a harsh reminder for Democrats that Republicans are still in power.
"We just have to be on our toes, and that means that even if they whisper into the microphone, we need people watching them," the Massachusetts congressman said. "We have two more months of these guys, and they're going to try and do a lot of bad s--- that we have to be prepared for."
Zachary Schermele is the congressional correspondent for USA TODAY. Reach him by email at zschermele@usatoday.com and on Signal @zachschermele.02. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele.
