“Jeffries didn’t even whip the vote,” one critic said about the House minority leader, who wants to be speaker. “This is why people want a stronger leader.”
As House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries seeks to become speaker when Democrats retake Congress in January, critics questioned his leadership Tuesday after the Republican-led lower chamber effectively blocked a bid to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth by just seven votes—an outcome that may have been averted if more Democrats showed up to vote.
The 211-204 procedural vote effectively torpedoed Congressman Thomas Massie’s attempt to impeach Hegseth by sending the outgoing Kentucky Republican’s resolution to the House Judiciary Committee, where it will likely gather dust during the remainder of the GOP-controlled congressional term.
The 11 Democratic members of the House who were not present for the procedural vote on the Pete Hegseth impeachment resolution are:
- Julia Brownley (Calif.)
- Lou Correa (Calif.) — note: the report notes he was recovering from a medical procedure and unable to travel
- Laura Gillen (NY)
- Steven Horsford (Nev.)
- Jonathan Jackson (Ill.)
- Nancy Pelosi (Calif.)
- Brittany Pettersen (Colo.)
- Melanie Stansbury (NM)
- Haley Stevens (Mich.)
- Marilyn Strickland (Wash.)
- Frederica Wilson (Fla.)
Of course it includes Pelosi. Stupid leech.
Majority of dems who didn’t vote, also had funding to their campaigns through aipac. Looking at you Marylin Strickland.
Not only that, they were attending an AIPAC event instead of being there to vote.
Are you fucking kidding me
I guarantee if the 11 Dems had shown up to vote, the 5 NV Repubs would have shown up too, so its a moot point. The outcome was known before the vote even went to the floor.
The congresscritters know this as well so they do things like:
- cancel each others vote out. So and so on one side has a wedding to attend, so and so on the other side has their kids first recital. They both agree to not show up
- their constituency aka campaign funds are in danger if they vote a certain way. They are certain to lose, so they abstain so when the next election cycle comes up they can say they didnt vote for that.
Jeffires is comprised by both Israel and Trump. Secret meetings with Kushner and sucking Bibi’s dick, swearing off getting justice and calling it revenge. You could fill a book with good reasons why he should not only never have additional power, he should be primaried and replaced asap.
Jefferies is a piece of shit and you can gaurntee that the midterms will have been for nothing and America won’t exist at the end of trymps term if these feckless republicans stay in power. Jeffries and Schumer are more GOP than they are Dem and will get us all killed through their incompetence.
I’m worried with the incoming members of congress we’re going to see the corporate democrats form their own caucus and start siding with republicans on issues effectively blunting any of the gains that democrats made. And if Jeffries stays in power he’s going to let that happen.
Jeffries didn’t even whip the vote. He told people to ‘vote their conscience,’ and 11 members of his caucus didn’t show up,” writer Laura Bassett wrote on social media. “This is why people want a stronger leader.”
Jeffries is a piece of shit and shouldn’t be anywhere near any leadership position…
But whipping votes is the job of the second in line…
A job with the literal title “minority whip”…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Clark
We can’t just focus on two popular names, we need to flush all the neoliberals out of leadership.
All that being said, votes just happen whenever with no warning. It’s way past time that these votes need to be scheduled in advance. Instead of “vote starts now” at least “vote starts in 24 hour, exactly at ____ o’clock”
Once the main vote happens, there can be exceptions for follow ups, like “next vote in one hour”
The current way shit is done is fucking stupid
A job with the literal title “minority whip”…
That is not the official title for that position, though it’s commonly called that. The official title is Assistant Minority Leader, because the person in that position reports to the House Minority Leader. Katherine Clark shares responsibility for this failure, but the buck stops at the top, and that’s Jeffries. It’s literally part of Jeffries’ job to tell the Assistant which votes should get whipped. The Assistant doesn’t typically decide that on their own.
All that being said, votes just happen whenever with no warning. It’s way past time that these votes need to be scheduled in advance. Instead of “vote starts now” at least “vote starts in 24 hour, exactly at ____ o’clock”
Yeah, it’s worth noting because the vote was called right after many Dems left for a break. And then when the call went out for all the Dems to scramble back, many were too far away and couldn’t make it before the vote was held.
Voting by our representatives should take place over the course of a week. They can use web cameras to discuss the topic, a publicly recorded version of Discord, and so on. I want my reps to drink coffee, talk out the issues, and be able to submit their vote without time pressure.
Our systems are rooted in being physically present, yet make mental presence optional.
It’s honestly depressing how little thought people put into this stuff, not every rage addict is a trump supporter these days. Uninformed angry people are all over, and they really want to share opinions
That’s why majority leader is an important position. Because they’re SUPPOSED to keep this kind of childish bullshit from happening. If you elect adults, this doesn’t happen. If you elect children (including those AARP age), you get the level of administration you voted for.
This was great strategy on the part of Massie to support the incoming wave of progressives,
Yep. This is making a great case for replacing current congressional leadership with new blood.
Yay voting means nothing and the dems are going to fuck up the momentum they had because jefferies and Schumer are basically republicans. Fuck this country.
Holy Shit. If he’s being this much a dick now, there’s no way in fucking hell is going to cooperate with the progressive caucus. Sure, you might get your committee assignments, but Dems are pros are strategically sinking progressive policies and there is little doubt in my mind that Jeffries will effectively stifle any movement towards fulfilling the mandates of this election.
There’s that meme, with Nick Offerman, “I said I want ICE abolished and the agents prosecuted”, “I’m afraid you thought I said ‘Rein in ice and conduct oversight’”, no, I said “Abolish ICE and prosecute the agents.”
It’ll be the same as “defund the police” where they’ll spin it as if we didn’t really mean abolish ICE when we said it
…typing is easiear than cut/paste for me
Reposting this comment here, as I’ve said it in a similar post… Also, this is NOT THE NEW CONGRESS UNTIL JAN 3
Maybe some of you don’t realize this, but while I don’t like the Dem party, this is clearly news bait to drive a wedge in the left.
The vote wasn’t whether or not to impeach, it was whether or not to move the impeachment to committee.
It was also called short, before Dems that COULD’VE been present could arrive.
The GOP loves playing games, this is them playing games and you’re falling for it.
And yet Jeffries is minority leader Now. Today. He doesnt need to wait until Jan 3 to do his effing job in this vote, did he. And he didnt do it. The one “playing games” here is you.
I don’t like Jeffries. I’ve emailed my FUTURE BLUE REP asking her to make sure he doesn’t maintain his leadership position.
My comment wasn’t about Jeffries, it is about the 20 articles all decrying the Dems on a GOP stunt.
This isn’t driving a wedge on the left because Jefferies is not on the left.
It’s entirely possible that with the GOP control of the voting and procedures, there was no way that we could get a different outcome. If the dems had their shit together and were all present, then the vote would have been delayed until the GOP were all present.
That said, Jeffries is still doing a piss poor job at the politics. He acts like he 100% has the speaker role and there is no way it is in jeopardy and he gives zero fucks what any of the voters think about it.
He could have pushed everone to do maximum effort and be available any time when a vote could potentially be called - not because it can change the outcome - but because it would signal to the voters that the house is on the job and takes the people’s concerns seriously.
He could have crafted a statement about how the GOP would only close the vote when they were ahead so this was an un-winnable fight (more tricky and messy than the 1st option but maybe chaining them all to their desks is too hard?).
He’s had a series on unforced errors like saying very directly, the day after the election, that he doesn’t support medicare for all and doesn’t think impeaching the president should be a priority. There may be valid stratigic reasons for those stances, but saying it like that is just a fuck you to at least a third of the Democratic voters (actually, probably more like 2/3 for M4A)
In short, the party is divided and he is to the right of the majority on some key issues (M4A). An effective leader for 2027 needs to be able to keep the party together, not by bullying incoming members, but by managing public opinion and delivering on the items that the voters largely support.
but saying it like that is just a fuck you to at least a third of the Democratic voters (actually, probably more like 2/3 for M4A)
And I bet the percentage of Democratic voters who’d disagree about impeachment of Trump being a priority is north of 90%.
Whether it’s actually feasible without a supermajority … who knows. Probably not. But not being willing to call it a priority is also a big ‘fuck you’ to the vast majority of Democratic voters.
Just refusing to give that soundbite seems like politics 101. There are reality TV stars with better media discipline.
Just refusing to give that soundbite seems like politics 101.
How hard is it to say, “It’s still under consideration” or something?
Your diatribe is exactly my point. I’m not onboard for Jeffries. I emailed my future Blue rep asking her to oust him from leadership. But sadly, we have to work with corpo dems to get anything done until they are all gone.
My point is these types of articles fit in with the GOP strategy, to cause rifts in the “left”
Quotes on “left” because of pedants, who keep yelling at me that there is no “left” in the USA.
Edit: this became a distracted rant somewhere along the line, so please feel free to disregard.
The GOP loves playing games, this is them playing games and you’re falling for it.
The whole thing is a spectacle. One side plays the comical baddy which some people turn to in ineffectual anger, allowing this anger to be dissipated against the usual scapegoats of the state (in short, minorities of any kind), and so not allowing it to congeal into any kind of threat to power.
Meanwhile the other side plays to fear around the comical baddy (who does do real harm, using exactly the same tools that they themselves dutifully maintain, and not infrequently use); to the point of effectively platforming some of the worst of them; as they flounder around realising they can’t offer anything but austerity and token gestures (most often repealing offenses against the population carried out in legal form, see slavery, segregation, gender rights, the list goes on) without stepping on the toes of power.
Realistically, the past both sides of this are yearning for is one that worked in a period of prodigious exploitation of new avenues and expansion of old ones as they related to the new (or growth, if you prefer).
This is no longer the case as the appearance of anything that has the momentum to keep the whole mass of debt moving becomes a rarer and rarer event, LLMs are/were the next big thing that was being banked on to keep it all going for the next decade or two, but even if that pays off the same crisis is looming down the road.
Neither ‘side’ has a satisfactory solution to this problem as their power all acts through the same levers, hence the recurring patterns absolutely everywhere. Insofar as I can see, the answer has to come from us seizing back power to dissipate its concentrations throughout us as a whole, or these things are going to keep happening.
Totally agree.
Unless someone wants to organize a revolution, “progressivising” (made that up, there’s probably a real word I could have used) the Dems is our best option IMO.
Blue Wave today. Progressive wave 2028.
I know this is about the Democrats and the screw up that prevents enough votes. But there were enough voters there to make it happen. Let’s not just excuse Republicans who are fine with what Hegseth has done. Sure, it’s expected, Republicans are best at stepping in line with the party, but it shouldn’t be ignored that they aren’t even apathetic, they voted against it. We need to learn how to use that denial and blocking against them, because it’s only going to get worse as Democrats try to do things constructively (once they get better leadership).
You had one job mf
What did the election mean? Why did we send most republicans and some corpo-dems packing? Was is for this? Jeezzus fucking christ!
This is not the new congress. That doesn’t happen until January 3rd.
For shame! Fucking Democrats didn’t magically take control, like we told them to???
/s
Assuming the outcomes of the midterm election meant nothing at all to the centrist dems, then sure. Just like they failed to learn a single damn thing from losing the 2024 presidential. As long as the aipac checks keep flowing, all is well, is what you are saying?
unpopular opinion, but i’m glad about this. the dems hate hegseth with passion, if he was almost impeached even in a republican congress, it’s practically guaranteed he will be impeached next time anyone tries. and why would the blue tsunami not try?
the real risk would be replacing him too quickly. senate can block his replacement, that’s gonna be a major point of leverage for the upcoming democrat congress. letting the gop rush his replacement would be a blunder, it would burn up all that leverage for nothing.
those no-shows are a genuinely good strategic move. they block the impeachment for now in a deniable way, because it’s gonna go through anyway, and because you can’t replace him if you don’t impeach him first. (unless trump fires him first, but like, fat chance.) however, an impeachment in february leaves trump begging the dems for his next secdef, while an impeachment now would have him scrambling to get a new guy in before the deadline.
You think any of the remaining MAGAt traitors in the Senate are gonna vote to convict next Congress? Even given the fact that the tsunami means only the most extreme are coming back, and with the full knowledge they CAN’T ram through another shithead? I don’t. Best chance for removal was now.
Hegseth would have been immediately exonerated in the Senate and would have yelled, “See! I did nothing wrong!” People have no idea how their own damned government works. Hegseth would have been declared innocent and being impeached again for the same crimes in January would have failed again.
