GOP lawmaker's absence nearly hands Democrats win on Trump war powers

Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, nearly handed Democrats a victory to restrict President Donald Trump's war powers in Venezuela by initially failing to appear for votes on Thursday.

It’s a continuation of a pattern of absences that’s added instability to a razor-thin Republican majority in the House of Representatives as Hunt spends time in Texas campaigning in a competitive Republican Senate primary.

Hunt had already missed two key votes earlier in the day by the time he rushed into the House chamber 20 minutes late for the Venezuela resolution. His vote was key to killing the bipartisan effort — which nearly succeeded by a one-vote margin.

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If successful, the resolution would have directed Trump to remove U.S. military forces from Venezuela, despite the administration saying there are no boots on the ground as is.

When asked before the vote if he was representing his constituents well, Hunt declined to answer, saying that he had returned to make sure lawmakers and their staff could leave town on schedule.

"I just want to make sure that y'all are OK when the storm hits, because it's coming, especially here in D.C. It's gonna hit y'all really, really hard," Hunt said, referring to a snowstorm forecast to hit the nation’s capital over the weekend.

Having cast his vote, Hunt immediately left the chamber.

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"Y'all be safe. Y'all be safe. Y'all be safe. This storm is coming," Hunt said as he got into a car.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters Hunt’s absence did not make his job "any easier" after the Texas Republican missed a separate vote that Republicans narrowly won earlier in the day.

With the recent death of Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif., and the resignation of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Republicans can only lose two votes to pass legislation without Democratic help. Notably, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and Tom McClintock, R-Calif., also missed votes on Thursday — although Stefanik arrived to cast a vote for the Venezuela resolution.

But Thursday’s debacle is part of a longer pattern for Hunt this Congress.

In 2025, Hunt missed 87 votes, accounting for 25.1% of all measures in the year. Notably, he was absent for a vote on condemning antisemitism in June, the passage of an anti-deepfake porn bill in April and even some procedural votes to advance President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act in May.

His longest streak of absences last year came in September when he missed 22 votes over a period of two days as the House considered a water and energy spending bill.

So far in 2026, he has only voted on two days.

Fortunately for leadership, Hunt has a pattern of missing votes that are expected to pass on a wide bipartisan basis — considerations that require supermajority support under a process called "suspension."

Because these bills usually pass without controversy, Hunt’s vote doesn’t usually threaten to make or break the result. 

That changed on Thursday when he missed a procedural vote needed to advance spending legislation and avoid a government shutdown. That measure passed by just one vote hours before Hunt’s arrival during the chamber’s consideration of the Venezuela resolution.

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Hunt’s office stressed that the congressman has taken special care to avoid missing critical votes.

"Zero bills, resolutions, or GOP priorities have been delayed or stopped because of Rep. Hunt’s priority to barnstorm Texas to retire John Cornyn," Hunt’s office said in a statement.

The office also contended that GOP leadership had said Hunt would not be needed in D.C. during the week and that Johnson had called Hunt personally on Thursday afternoon, informing him that the picture had changed.

"In the middle of his campaign to retire a career politician of over 40 years, Hunt left the campaign trail, rushed to Washington and delivered the deciding vote that nuked the radical Democrats’ plan to block President Trump from securing the Western Hemisphere," Hunt’s office said.

Hunt is running to unseat Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. In response to Hunt’s absences, Cornyn blasted Hunt’s behavior on Thursday in a post to X.

"Fortunately for Republicans, Hunt’s vote wasn’t needed to ensure the final spending package was approved, but [he] nearly handed Democrats a PR coup and created chaos on the House floor as GOP leaders were forced to hold open a vote on a measure to block U.S. military presence in Venezuela," Cornyn wrote.