A reason for your tardiness.............but if u work on Capital Hill...................and were supposedly elected..................with the enormous import of that job..............war....................famine..........people dying..............etc................................and we had more trouble explaining why we did not go to high school.............................how is that Ok?!!?!?!



ProPublica has collected all of the Personal Explanations filed since 2007 — some 5,058 in all, covering 21,176 votes — and created a database that lets readers look up their representatives’ missed votes, as well as their explanations. These statements are by no means required — only one in six absences are explained — but they document a little-discussed aspect of the lives and work of lawmakers, and provide hints at the competing priorities and difficulties of a system that, to many, seems chronically dysfunctional.