With each passing week, more and more congressional Republicans are announcing their retirements. Their reasons are varied. Jason Chaffetz of Utah quit Congress to take a job as a Fox News commentator. Several members not seeking reelection, like South Dakota’s Kristi Noem and Tennessee’s Marsha Blackburn, are running for statewide office.
A few, like Florida’s Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Pennsylvania’s Charlie Dent, have been frustrated with President Trump. But eight-term congressman Jeb Hensarling of Texas, who announced his retirement on October 31, says the Trump story-line is overblown. “There are some in the media who try to paint a narrative of retiring members having something to do with the president,” Hensarling tells me. “Although like many Republicans, I occasionally wish he would tweet a little less, I’m very excited about most aspects of the president’s agenda.”
So far, the number of House Republicans elected in 2016 who are not seeking reelection in 2018 has topped two dozen, more than 10 percent of the GOP caucus. Congressional Republicans worry that if the stream of retirements turns into a flood, it will increase the chances of a GOP wipeout in 2018. As much as voters say they dislike Washington, it’s still harder to beat an incumbent than to win an open congressional seat.
Hensarling cites several factors that led to his retirement. Term limits would have forced him to step down as chairman of the Financial Services Committee, and at age 60 he believes he has one last career left in him. “I have a goal that many Americans share, and that is: I’d like to work less hard, make more money, and spend more time with my family,” he says. Another big factor is that the inability to get legislation passed by the House enacted into law is “exceedingly frustrating,” says Hensarling, and that frustration is widely shared by colleagues.
Congress “in many respects has enfeebled itself,” Hensarling says. “One way it has enfeebled itself is through the current practice of the filibuster rules in the Senate.” The Senate’s filibuster rules give 41 members the ability to block almost any piece of legislation, such as Hensarling’s conservative reform of Dodd-Frank, the financial regulation law signed by President Obama in 2010. While some conservatives argue that the filibuster is worth keeping in order to prevent bad legislation from getting passed, Hensarling believes the greater threat is Congress’s ceding power to an “unaccountable, unelected bureaucracy” in the executive branch.
And that’s yet another reason why congressional Republicans are anxious to pass tax reform via the budget reconciliation process. That process is Congress’s one opportunity each fiscal year to take up significant legislation that can’t be filibustered. “Tax reform is a fairly existential issue,” a senior GOP House campaign operative tells me. “In my experience, the single most important factor to deter retirements is: Are lawmakers legislating?” With the Senate’s failure to use reconciliation to pass a bill partially repealing and replacing Obamacare before the end of the year, tax reform may be the congressional GOP’s only shot at a big legislative victory before the 2018 elections.
Republicans are facing strong pressure from the outside to pass tax reform. “My donors are basically saying, ‘Get it done or don’t ever call me again,’ ” New York’s Chris Collins told reporters on November 7. But even tax reform isn’t a clear-cut political victory. While most middle-class taxpayers would be better off under the GOP plan, the bill’s paring back and eliminating certain deductions makes it a mixed bag for upper-middle-class voters more likely to live in high-cost, high-tax districts won by Hillary Clinton. House Republicans hold a 24-seat majority, and 23 of them represent districts won by Clinton in 2016.
So far, only a few of the Republicans from Clinton-won districts have announced they will retire. Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, who’s in charge of candidate recruitment for the House GOP, notes that the party has already fielded strong candidates in several competitive districts. In Washington state, Republican Dave Reichert is retiring from a district won by Clinton, but the GOP hopes to replace him with Dino Rossi, a well-known state senator who nearly won the 2004 gubernatorial election in that deep-blue state.
Republicans also plan to go on offense in Democratic districts won by Trump. Stefanik points out that in a Minnesota district won by Trump, Republican candidate “Pete Stauber just outraised incumbent Rick Nolan. Pete Stauber has an incredible story—served in law enforcement, a hockey star, just dogged in how he’s campaigning and getting around the district.”
While retirements in strongly Republican districts will not likely put those seats in play for Democrats, the departure of so many incumbents can reshape Congress in significant ways. A majority of the House GOP conference was elected in 2010 or later, and the retirement of veteran legislators means there will be fewer Republicans with leadership experience and expertise, thereby increasing reliance on K Street lobbyists. Jeb Hensarling is a perfect example of the kind of damage retirements can do to the GOP. When John Boehner fell from power in 2015, there was talk that Hensarling was one of the few members respected enough to lead the fractious GOP caucus. Bob Goodlatte is another example. First elected in 1992, the Virginia congressman and judiciary committee chairman announced his retirement on November 9.
It’s too early to detect any sort of trend, but retirements from strongly Republican districts may also present the opportunity for more populist, Trumpian candidates to fill the ranks of the GOP. Politico reported on November 3 that Breitbart News chief Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist who has vowed to wage a war on the Senate GOP, pledged in a meeting with Ohio congressman Steve Stivers, head of the House GOP’s campaign committee, that he would not focus on primaries against House Republicans. In 2016, Breitbart’s top GOP primary target was Paul Ryan, who defeated his Trumpist challenger by 70 points. But open seats in strongly Republican districts could be fertile ground for more populist candidates in 2018. “We haven’t seen a surge of Bannon-type candidates in the House,” says Cook Political Report House analyst David Wasserman. “That’s not to say those types of candidates won’t be successful in open seats.”
Republicans are less likely to stick around if they think they’re going to lose control of the House in 2018. A lot can change in 12 months, but polls asking voters if they prefer a Democratic- or Republican-majority House give Democrats nearly a 10-point advantage, according to the Real Clear Politics polling average. Presidential job approval often has a strong influence on midterm elections, and only 38 percent of voters approve of Trump’s performance, according to the RCP average of polls, while 57 percent disapprove. And the Democratic sweep in Virginia last week underscored the fact that GOP control of the U.S. House of Representatives is precarious at best. “It’s hard to see Democrats as anything other than narrow favorites for House control in this environment,” says Wasserman. “The next month will tell us a lot more than the last. Republicans could be on the verge of an exodus in swing seats. But we don’t know for sure today.”
John McCormack is a senior writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
