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Jeffries dragged for 'serious leadership problem' as Hegseth impeachment bid falls 7 votes short with 11 Dem no-shows (www.commondreams.org)
submitted 13 hours ago by to c/politics@lemmy.world
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“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.

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[–] 10 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

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.
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  • [–] 11 points 8 hours ago

    While this is no doubt true, it is a terrible signal to send after voters have a resounding permission to tear down the old corrupt system. Practically their first action after the election is to signal "business as usual".

    I can smell bitter disappointment in the air as to the future.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 hours ago*

    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.

    Not necessarily. This was not a vote on the impeachment itself; this was a vote on whether to send it to committee (where it would obviously time out and die) or to advance it for a vote. Impeachments are privileged and handled differently than a regular bill.

    Had ALL the Dems showed up, the vote on sending it to committee would have passed by too narrow a margin, and the process would have automatically progressed to a floor vote on the impeachment itself.

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