There were 20 instances in which the number of explained missed House votes exceeded the final margin by which a House measure passed or failed, and half of those instances involved amendments.
Notes on verification
Directly confirmed by original ProPublica investigation (Derek Willis and Cecilia Reyes) and consistently repeated verbatim across multiple syndicated outlets (KTOO, BillMoyers, Salon, Truthdig, HuffPost) with no contradicting figures found. [tier=unverified indep_score=0.3 clusters=2 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.ktoo.org/2015/11/16/dog-ate-vote-congress-explains-absences/ (corroboration)
- https://billmoyers.com/2015/11/12/the-dog-ate-my-vote-how-congress-explains-its-absences/ (corroboration)