Stuck in Traffic: The Most Expensive Excuse in Washington

Eleven empty chairs. Seven votes short.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi was 2,800 miles away in San Francisco when the Hegseth impeachment vote was called. Her office says she would have voted no. The record says she didn’t vote.

Stuck in Traffic: The Most Expensive Excuse in Washington

Eleven empty chairs. Seven votes short.

The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #1,083: Wednesday, November 11th, 2026.

Here’s a heads-up. I’m pissed off. If you aren’t already, I hope that by the time you finish reading this…you are, too.

Let me give you the only numbers that matter.

211 to 204. That’s the tally by which the House shipped eight articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth off to a committee to die on Tuesday.

Eleven. That’s how many Democrats didn’t vote.

215 to 211. That’s the score if all eleven show up and vote no. The motion fails. The impeachment fight lives.

A Republican, Thomas Massie, did the hard part. He wrote the articles. He forced the vote. He handed Democrats a loaded opportunity…and all they had to do…was BE IN THE BUILDING..

They couldn’t manage it. They. Could. Not.

Not outvoted. Not outmaneuvered. Not outspent. Out to lunch. This fight was lost on attendance…the one thing a third-grader gets graded on.

And the reason offered to you, the person who knocked the doors, wrote the checks and stood in the line?

Traffic.

The excuses, one at a time

I’ve spent part of my career listening to excuses from people who didn’t get the job done.

They all share one feature: they’re about something outside the person making them. So let’s take these one at a time.

“There was traffic.”

In Washington, D.C. At rush hour. With a motorcade. This is a fisherman…blaming WATER. Traffic near the Capitol isn’t an “emergency.” It’s the weather. Professionals plan around known conditions. Amateurs…get surprised by them.

“I missed it by one minute.”

One office actually offered this as a defense. It’s a confession. If you missed by one minute…you were one decision away from making it. One earlier exit. One shorter goodbye.

“I filed a statement saying how I would have voted.”

Wonderful. Statements don’t count. Votes count. Nobody…ever deposited an intention at the bank.

“We were coming back from an event.”

Here’s the part that should make your blood boil. (Mine is boiling as I write, and I even waited five G’damn hours to write about it…for that very reason.)

Reporters say several of the missing were returning from a reception for a Democratic PAC about a mile and a half from the Capitol.

A mile and a half. You can walk that in thirty minutes. You can jog it…in FIFTEEN. On the day of a vote to hold a wartime Defense Secretary to account…they chose a reception and a car.

“I was at an event back home.”

One was 2,800 miles away in San Francisco. Worthy event. WRONG DAY.

Be fair, you say. Fine. One member was home under doctor’s orders ahead of a medical procedure. That’s a reason…not an excuse, and I’ll take it. That’s ONE. The other TEN were more than enough.

Even their own colleague called bullshit. Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove said members should have “gotten their raggedy selves up these steps to vote.”

Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-CA) criticized fellow Democrats who missed Tuesday’s Hegseth impeachment vote, saying the party had no reason to lose on attendance.

She’s right. And…notice what every one of these excuses has in common: nobody is saying I blew it. That’s the tell. People who own a failure fix it. People who explain a failure…repeat it.

This is a management failure

Now here’s where I part company with the people who want to yell at eleven members and move on.

I did some consulting as part of my business for a few years. In any business, when eleven employees miss the most important meeting of the quarter, I don’t ask what’s wrong with the employees. I ask who’s running the place.

Leadership has exactly one non-negotiable job on a day like this: count the votes and get the bodies in the room. That’s it. That’s the ENTIRE JOB.

Know where every member is. Know who’s a mile away at a reception. Send the text. Send the car. Send the intern on a scooter. Tell the PAC the party’s over at five.

None of that takes genius. It takes a clipboard…and somebody who gives a rat’s ass.

Instead…a vote everyone knew was coming…went down with eleven chairs empty. And…the response from the top? Hakeem Jeffries says…the fight can be taken up in the next Congress.

Next Congress. Translation: we’ll get around to it.

Here’s what should terrify you. These are the people who just won. Democrats take the majority in January. Jeffries is in line for the Speaker’s gavel.

Voters handed this party power, and one week later…on the very first test..the team couldn’t field a full roster.

If this is how they execute with the wind at their backs…and the whole country watching…what happens when it gets hard?

A fish rots from the head. So does a caucus.

New blood. Now.

So what do we do about it? Not a strongly worded letter. Not a listening session.

Here’s the list.

Name the failure.

Leadership owes voters a plain accounting: who was where…who was supposed to be tracking them…and why the count was wrong. In writing. THIS WEEK..

Replace the people who own the count.

Whoever was responsible for getting members to the floor failed…at the only thing the job is. In the real world, that person is updating a résumé by Friday.

Open every leadership post to a real contest.

The new Congress organizes in weeks. No coronations. No “it’s her turn.” Every position…from the top down…gets earned in front of the caucus by people who can answer one question: how do you make sure Tuesday never happens again?

Promote the ones who showed up angry.

There are members of that caucus who were on the floor…on time…and PISSED OFF. That’s your bench. Tenure is not a qualification. Results are.

New blood…isn’t about age…or ideology. It’s about hunger. People who just fought their way into that building…know what showing up costs. Put them in charge of the clipboard.

Your move

Here’s the brutal truth about power: it isn’t what you say. It’s who’s in the room when the gavel falls.

On Tuesday, the room was eleven short…and the excuse was a “traffic jam.”

You don’t work for these people. They work for you. So call your representative’s office today…and ask two questions. Where were you when the vote was called? And who are you backing in the leadership elections?

Then write down the answers.

Because the next vote is coming. And the people who couldn’t get their members a mile and a half down the road…should NOT be running the show when it does.

Here’s the entire list of those who didn’t vote:

• Rep. Julia Brownley (D-CA, 26th District)

• Rep. Lou Correa (D-CA, 46th District)

• Rep. Laura Gillen (D-NY, 4th District)

• Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV, 4th District)

• Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-IL, 1st District)

• Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA, 11th District), Speaker Emerita

• Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-CO, 7th District)

• Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM, 1st District)

• Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI, 11th District)

• Rep. Marilyn Strickland (D-WA, 10th District)

• Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL, 24th District)

#HoldFast

Back soon.

-Jack

Jack Hopkins

P.S. Think I’m being too hard on leadership? Then chew on this. CBS News reports that House Democratic leaders weren’t even whipping this vote.

Caucus chair Pete Aguilar’s words: “We didn’t put our finger on the scale.”

Sweet Jesus. THINK. ABOUT. THAT.

On a vote decided by seven, with eleven of their own missing…the people whose entire job is counting…chose not to count. That isn’t bad luck. That’s a decision. And decisions have owners.

Sources

• CBS News: Congress live updates, Hegseth impeachment vote is killed

• CBS News: House blocks Massie’s effort to impeach Hegseth

• The Hill: House GOP shelves Pete Hegseth impeachment articles

• Newsweek: Full List of Democrats Who Missed Hegseth Impeachment Vote

• The Washington Sun: House Democrats Blame Traffic for Missing Key Hegseth Impeachment Vote

• HuffPost: Republicans Block Hegseth Impeachment Effort, live updates

• Ryan Grim on X, relaying Andrew Solender’s reporting on the PAC reception