Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., missed a vote last week and filed a vote explanation telling everyone not to worry. The Senate voted March 2 on an amendment to legislation aimed at combating heroin and other opioid abuse.  

The minority leader’s vote explanation read:

Mr. President, as Senators, we pride ourselves in making
sure that we vote when we are required to vote, and we are always very
aware of when the votes occur and what happens with the votes. I missed
a vote yesterday at 4 o’clock.

My staff has told me the clerks here are concerned that they did
something wrong. I missed the vote. It was my fault. It was no one’s
fault but my own. I had a doctor’s appointment at 4:30, and I got here
too late.

So everyone should understand that I have missed other votes, and I
have already announced how I would have voted had I voted, and it
wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the vote. So all the clerks, who
serve us so well all the time, shouldn’t worry at all about my not
being recorded on that vote.

So calm down, everybody. I don’t care. You shouldn’t care.

The amendment offered by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., was rejected 48-47 because it needed 60 votes to pass. So Reid’s vote would not have changed the outcome.

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