New Mexico Democrat U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury is apologizing after missing a closely watched House vote involving an effort to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, blaming Washington rush-hour traffic and a police motorcade for preventing her from reaching the Capitol before the vote closed.
“I am genuinely and sincerely sorry,” Stansbury said in a lengthy video posted Wednesday, acknowledging that she should have arrived sooner.
“There is no one who is more disappointed in myself than me that I was not here the moment that gavel dropped,” she said.
The missed vote immediately drew scrutiny because Stansbury has been one of Hegseth’s most vocal critics and previously signed onto an impeachment effort against him.
Official House records show that the chamber voted 211-204 Tuesday evening to refer H.Res. 1655 — an impeachment resolution introduced by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky — to the House Judiciary Committee, effectively preventing an immediate up-or-down impeachment vote.
Massie was the lone Republican to vote against sending his own resolution to committee. All 203 Democrats who participated likewise voted against referral.
Stansbury: ‘I should have been there sooner’
In her explanation, Stansbury said she was away from the Capitol as the vote approached and hurried back to her car.
“As the vote was approaching, I ran back to my car,” she said. “I got in my car and I began driving towards the Capitol.”
She did not explain in the video where she had been immediately beforehand.
Stansbury said she encountered heavy traffic on Independence Avenue, where one lane had been closed.
“I was stuck in the right-hand lane,” she said. “I had just gone through the light and was — I could literally see the Capitol.”
She said her staff contacted the House floor to warn that she was trapped in traffic and that other lawmakers were facing the same problem.
Then, according to Stansbury, matters got worse.
“There was a police motorcade that escorted a bus off of campus and blocked traffic in both directions,” she said.
“I should have been there sooner,” Stansbury conceded. “I understand that it is my responsibility and I am sincerely sorry.”
But she added that “there were definitely factors that were out of my control” and promised, “this will never happen again.”
The procedural vote had been expected at approximately 5:30 p.m. Eastern, according to House leadership’s published schedule. The House began debate on the referral motion at approximately 5:34 p.m., and the final vote was recorded at 6:02 p.m.
The Washington Post reported that the vote remained open for roughly 27 minutes, longer than the standard 15-minute voting window.
Stansbury arrived minutes later
Official voting records also provide a clearer picture of how narrowly Stansbury missed the vote.
The Hegseth referral vote closed at 6:02 p.m.
Just eight minutes later, at 6:10 p.m., Stansbury was recorded voting “Nay” on the House’s next roll call. She also participated in another vote at 6:20 p.m.
After arriving, Stansbury formally entered a statement into the Congressional Record declaring how she would have voted on Hegseth.
“Mr. Speaker, had I been present, I would have voted NAY on Roll Call No. 317,” the record states.
That does not change the official 211-204 tally.
Questions over Democratic women’s PAC event
Stansbury’s explanation has also drawn additional attention because reports indicate that some of the Democrats who missed the vote had been returning from an Elect Democratic Women reception being held nearby.
Axios congressional reporter Andrew Solender reported that some of the missing Democrats were returning from an Elect Democratic Women event roughly 1.5 miles from the Capitol when they became trapped in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Other reports said the reception ran from approximately 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., overlapping with the scheduled impeachment proceedings.
Stansbury has a direct connection to the group.
Elect Democratic Women announced in 2025 that Stansbury had joined its board of directors as an at-large member.
However, Stansbury did not say in her video that she had attended the reception, and available reporting has generally said that “some” of the missing Democrats were returning from it rather than definitively placing each absent lawmaker there.
At least one lawmaker reportedly abandoned a vehicle and walked toward the Capitol when traffic became gridlocked.
415 members made the vote
An X Community Note appearing beneath Stansbury’s initial explanation pointedly noted that hundreds of other lawmakers managed to cast votes despite the traffic problems.
The official House tally confirms that 415 representatives voted — 211 in favor of referral and 204 against — while 18 were recorded as not voting.
Stansbury was one of those 18.
Her single vote would not, by itself, have reversed the result. If she had voted with the other Democrats, the tally would have been 211-205.
The larger group of Democratic absences was potentially more consequential: if all 11 absent Democrats had voted against referral while every other recorded vote remained unchanged, the tally would have swung against referral.
But seven Republicans also missed the vote, meaning a full-attendance scenario cannot simply be inferred from the recorded tally.
Even Stansbury’s own side was not buying the explanation
The backlash beneath Stansbury’s post was not confined to Republicans.
Several X users who appeared sympathetic to the impeachment effort blasted the congresswoman for failing to be inside the Capitol when the scheduled vote occurred.
“I cannot understand why you would not have been in the building knowing that important vote was coming up,” one user, Keddie, wrote beneath Stansbury’s post.
Another commenter, Sydney Robert Johnson, was considerably more blunt:
“DO YOU THINK WE ARE STUPID, OR ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE FOOLS OF US??” the user wrote, asking who would believe Stansbury’s explanation.
Another user asked simply, “Why were yall that far away when you only have one job?”
A fourth wrote, “If you can’t even show up to work by 5:30 pm on time then you shouldn’t be in charge of anything.”
Another commenter accused Democrats of using a “completely fabricated story,” while still another attacked lawmakers who missed the vote for allegedly allowing Hegseth to remain in office longer.
The reaction was striking because many of the angry commenters were not defending Hegseth. Instead, they were furious that lawmakers who had demanded his removal failed to show up for a vote involving his impeachment.
One separate X user commenting on the controversy wrote, “I think the democrat voters are starting to catch on…”
The criticism underscores the political bind Stansbury created for herself: she has spent months advocating Hegseth’s impeachment, but when the issue actually reached the House floor, she was absent.
Stansbury says impeachment fight will return
Stansbury attempted to put the missed vote in perspective by stressing that Tuesday’s action was not a vote on the impeachment articles themselves.
“What was voted on on the House floor last night was not the impeachment itself,” she said. “It was a motion to refer the impeachment to a committee.”
That distinction is accurate: the official House record identifies Roll Call 317 specifically as a motion to refer the impeachment resolution.
Stansbury has previously backed efforts to remove Hegseth and said Wednesday that she remains committed to that position.
“This is not the end,” she said. “This is just the beginning.”
She also acknowledged that Democrats currently lack the numbers needed to remove Hegseth, particularly in the Senate, where conviction following impeachment would require a two-thirds vote.
“We did not have the numbers to move forward to impeach Pete Hegseth at this moment,” Stansbury said.
But she vowed another attempt once Democrats take power in the next Congress.
“If he is not gone by then, we will impeach him,” she said.
For now, however, the controversy is focused less on Stansbury’s position on Hegseth than on the fact that when one of the most politically charged votes of the lame-duck session reached the floor, the New Mexico congresswoman who had repeatedly demanded his impeachment was not there to cast her vote.
Her own supporters and other anti-Hegseth commenters appear to have noticed.
“I know that I should have been there,” Stansbury acknowledged.
“And I am sincerely sorry.”