Rep. Lou Correa, D-Calif., was not stuck in rush-hour traffic when House Democrats tried to impeach Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Tuesday. He was in an operating room.
Correa said in a Wednesday post on X that he underwent emergency open-heart surgery on Tuesday, Nov. 10 — the same day the House voted 211-204 to refer Rep. Thomas Massie's impeachment articles against Hegseth to the Judiciary Committee, effectively killing the effort. Correa's post did not say at which hospital the procedure took place.
"Thank you to everyone who has reached out with prayers, well wishes, and words of encouragement. Your kindness means a great deal to my family and me. On Tuesday, November 10th, I underwent emergency open-heart surgery. The surgery went well, and I am now recovering," Correa wrote.
The Orange County Register reported over the weekend that Correa had experienced a heart attack, according to Fox News Politics. The congressman said he will continue working from his district until he is medically cleared to return to Washington.
"When medically cleared, I'll return to Washington, D.C., and continue fighting for Orange County. In the meantime, I'll continue working from the district alongside my team to serve our constituents. To the doctors, surgeons, nurses, and medical staff: Thank you for the extraordinary care you've provided and the compassion you've shown my family. Nos vemos pronto," he added.
\nCorrea may have missed the vote, but he made his position known. In a separate Tuesday post on X, he wrote, "I vehemently support the impeachment of Secretary Hegseth," arguing that Hegseth "has dragged us into another endless war," fired experienced generals who disagree with him and the president, and allowed the military to discriminate against women, LGBTQ+ service members, and others.
His absence was not the only one. Eleven Democrats and seven Republicans missed the vote, according to Fox News Politics. Rep. Thomas Massie, the outgoing GOP lawmaker behind the impeachment articles, was the only House Republican to oppose the motion to sideline his own effort.
Other Democrats who skipped the vote have offered explanations that are drawing more scrutiny than Correa's medical emergency. Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., apologized in a video for missing the vote, blaming rush-hour traffic and a police motorcade near the Capitol. "There is no one who is more disappointed in myself than me," she said.
Rep. Jonathan Jackson, D-Ill., also cited traffic. Then TMZ reported seeing Jackson filming a social media video about the Hegseth impeachment on the Capitol steps at approximately 5:57 p.m. — roughly eight minutes before the vote closed at 6:05 p.m. — prompting Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) to question the explanation, Newsweek reported.
"I saw Jonathan Jackson, filming a social media video about the Hegseth impeachment. And that would have been at about 5:57, 5:58 p.m. The Hegseth impeachment vote did not close until 6:05 p.m. And he was on the steps like, that's where the vote is. Just go inside, you're right there. So what happened in that time, I don't know, but the traffic jam thing, it's not the truth, or it's not the whole truth," Cotton said, according to Newsweek.
Jackson stood by the traffic explanation, telling Newsweek that missing the vote was "inexcusable" but doubled down on his call for Hegseth's removal. Newsweek noted that TMZ did not publish a photo or video of Jackson present at the vote, and that it has not independently verified the account. ABC News reported the vote was scheduled for 15 minutes but held open for 29 minutes.
Fundraiser Under Fire
While Correa was undergoing surgery, scrutiny was building around where some of the other absent Democrats were before the vote. Drop Site News obtained an RSVP list for a Tuesday "New Member Reception" hosted by the political action committee Elect Democratic Women (EDW), chaired by Rep. Lois Frankel, D-Fla., and reported that the event was expected to draw 132 lobbyists, including representatives of top weapons makers and defense lobbying firms.
According to Drop Site News, defense industry attendees included at least two people from Lockheed Martin, as well as representatives from firms including Cornerstone Public Affairs, Invariant, Akin Gump, Porter Group, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, K&L Gates, and BGR Group. The list also included lobbyists for Anthropic, Google, Dell, Salesforce, Airbnb, Intel, PhRMA, Genentech, AstraZeneca, Blue Cross Blue Shield, CVS, Elevance Health, Kalshi, Coinbase, and Bayer-Monsanto, according to Drop Site News.
Federal campaign finance records cited by Drop Site News show AIPAC's super PAC, United Democracy Project, funneled at least $2.35 million into EDW Action in the 2026 cycle. Drop Site News also reported that four of the missing Democrats blamed traffic getting back to the Capitol from an event. Next News Network has not independently verified the RSVP list or the campaign finance figures.
For everyday Americans watching from outside the Beltway, the picture is simple: the one Democrat with an actual medical emergency, Correa, had open-heart surgery. The others had scheduling problems and a party.
Our Take
The media will treat Correa's surgery as a tidy ending to the story — a sympathetic excuse that lets everyone off the hook. It doesn't. Correa's open-heart surgery is a legitimate medical emergency, and nobody should begrudge him recovery. But his absence does not explain the other ten Democrats who skipped the vote, and it certainly doesn't explain the defense-lobbyist reception that Drop Site News reported was happening the same afternoon.
The Hegseth impeachment push was always a show vote for the progressive base. Massie's articles were never going to remove a sitting Secretary of Defense in a Republican-controlled House. But if Democrats truly believed Hegseth had committed impeachable offenses, they would have been in their seats. Instead, eleven of them weren't — and several blamed traffic while their colleagues were reportedly mingling with Lockheed Martin lobbyists and Big Pharma representatives at a reception chaired by one of their own.
Correa gets prayers for his recovery. The rest of the caucus gets a simple question: if the vote mattered as much as you say it did, why weren't you there?
