Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) appeared to be on the verge of tears Wednesday as she blamed DC’s notorious rush hour traffic for missing a key vote on an impeachment resolution against War Secretary Pete Hegseth.
In a 211-204 vote, House Republicans successfully blocked Rep. Thomas Massie’s (R-Ky.) impeachment effort on Tuesday, and Stansbury was one of 11 Democrats who missed the vote.
“Let me start by saying, I am so sorry,” Stansbury said in a video recorded outside the Capitol Building and posted on social media. “There is no one who is more disappointed in myself than me, that I was not here the moment that gavel dropped.”
However, the congresswoman suggested her vote wouldn’t have mattered based on the current math in Congress.
“While I know that it is my responsibility to be here, I know that I should have been there … We did not have the numbers to move forward to impeach Pete Hegseth at this moment,” Stansbury said. “Not to mention, in the Senate, where he would have to have a trial and be convicted with a two-thirds vote.”
The congresswoman blamed “horrific” gridlock for missing the long-scheduled 5:30 p.m. vote.
“As the vote was approaching, I ran back to my car,” Stansbury said, without explaining where she was. “I got in my car, and I began driving towards the Capitol and as I approached the Capitol, it was rush hour on Independence Avenue. They closed one of the lanes. I was stuck in the right-hand lane.”
The New Mexico Democrat said she could “see the Capitol” from her car and that she instructed her staff to “call the floor to let the floor know that the traffic was horrific outside.”
“There were other members who were stuck in it, and just at that moment, as I was approaching the Capitol, there was a police motorcade that escorted a bus off of campus and blocked traffic in both directions,” Stansbury continued, before acknowledging, “I should have been there sooner.”
“I understand that it is my responsibility, and I am sincerely sorry, but there were definitely factors that were out of my control,” she said.
Stansbury wasn’t the only Democrat who blamed traffic for not showing up to work on time.
Reps. Marilyn Strickland (D-Wash.), John Jackson (D-Ill.), Brittany Pettersen (D-Colo.) and Laura Gillen (D-NY) all appear to have been stuck in the same snarl.
Stansbury and several other Dems were at an Elect Democratic Women PAC reception at a nearby restaurant at the same time as the Hegseth impeachment vote, according to Axios.
The outlet reported that at least one lawmaker got out of their car and walked to the Capitol because of the traffic jam.
Seven Republicans also missed the vote.
