About four in 10 personal explanations from House members involved 'suspension of the rules' votes, and absences on such votes accounted for 36 percent of all House votes missed between 2007 and October 2015.
Notes on verification
Statistic verbatim from ProPublica's original data analysis, republished consistently across multiple syndication partners; all trace to the same underlying dataset but no contradicting sources found. [tier=unverified indep_score=0.3 clusters=4 claim_tier=notable] [rescored 2026-09-15: curated origin-host map (PR #65); unclassified hosts no longer scored as aggregators]
Sources
- The Dog Ate My Vote: How Congress Explains Its Absences (seed:politics_and_current_events)
- https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-dog-ate-my-vote-how-members-of-congress-explain-their-absences/ (corroboration)
- https://www.ktoo.org/2015/11/16/dog-ate-vote-congress-explains-absences/ (corroboration)
- https://www.salon.com/2015/11/15/the_dog_at_my_vote_how_congress_explains_its_absences_partner/ (corroboration)
- https://billmoyers.com/2015/11/12/the-dog-ate-my-vote-how-congress-explains-its-absences/ (corroboration)