Rep. Laura Gillen couldn't make it to the House floor for the most consequential constitutional vote of her short career — impeaching War Secretary Pete Hegseth for waging unauthorized war in Iran — because she was at a reception hosted by an AIPAC-funded PAC, then told constituents she was stuck in traffic.
The vote failed 211-204. Had all 11 absent Democrats shown up and voted, the Republican motion to bury the impeachment in committee would have failed. Instead, Hegseth walks, and Gillen's Long Island constituents — who just reelected her last week — are furious.
"What a bogus excuse," one Hofstra student told the New York Post. "I can't believe I voted for her," said another constituent, Anthony Simpson. A gender studies professor at Hofstra, granted anonymity, summed up the cynicism: "When you think about politicians and their priorities and donors, I mean, I wouldn't think that they are gonna be so flexible and free in terms of taking actions."
She's right to follow the money. Gillen was reportedly at a new-member reception held by the Elect Democratic Women PAC, scheduled from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at a restaurant a mile and a half from the Capitol — overlapping directly with the 5:30 p.m. vote. A Gillen spokesperson initially declined to confirm her attendance, then admitted it after publication, according to the Post.
EDW's offshoot, the EDW Action Fund, operates as a major pass-through for the United Democracy Project, a super PAC formed by AIPAC. Gillen has accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from that apparatus, the Post reported. Of the 11 Democrats who missed the vote, eight have received support from EDW or its AIPAC-tied super PAC, according to Drop Site's Julian Andreone, cited by Breitbart.
Here's the institutional punchline: the EDW reception was co-founded and hosted by Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA), whose literal job is to round up Democratic votes. Clark made it to the floor. Her colleagues did not. "What does a whip do?" asked MeidasTouch editor Ron Filipkowski. Even anti-Trump attorney George Conway typed in all-caps that the House Democratic whip was throwing the fundraiser that kept Democrats from voting to impeach.
The traffic excuse collapses under scrutiny. Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) checked himself out of the hospital one day after back surgery to make the vote. TMZ reported that Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-IL) — another no-show who blamed traffic — was spotted by a TMZ correspondent filming a social media video on the Capitol steps at 5:57 p.m., five minutes before the vote closed at 6:02. That video was never posted. When confronted, Jackson called the blunder "inexcusable" but stressed it was "only a procedural vote."
The impeachment articles, introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), charged Hegseth with violating congressional authority by waging war in Iran and ordering deadly strikes on suspected drug boats. It was a constitutional question about who gets to send Americans to war — exactly the kind of vote a representative is elected to cast. House Republicans killed their own member's resolution anyway, 211-204.
Gillen posted on X that she was "stuck behind the same police escort blocking the Capitol when Republicans closed the vote." Several other absent Democrats made similar claims. But 415 members managed to find their way to the floor.
The question isn't whether traffic was bad on Tuesday. The question is why a freshman congresswoman chose a PAC fundraiser over a constitutional vote on an unauthorized war — and why she thought constituents wouldn't notice.
