House members from both sides of the aisle are retiring from Congress at a fast clip or are seeking other offices. A House panel considered among the most prestigious and desirable to get a spot on, the Energy and Commerce Committee, reflects the coming congressional brain drain.
The “A-list” House committee has vast jurisdiction over public policy, including regarding health insurance, such as Medicare and Medicaid. Plus it also has responsibility for matters including telecommunications, consumer protection, food and drug safety, environmental quality, energy policy, and interstate and foreign commerce, among others.
Yet 12 Energy and Commerce Committee members have announced their intent to leave the House after the 2024 elections, with six Republicans and three Democrats retiring and three aspiring for other offices. Most recently, the chairwoman of the 51-member committee, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), announced she will not seek reelection after almost two decades of representing Washington and being the first woman to lead the panel.
Her move comes amid continued House Republican infighting, with the party operating with a precariously narrow majority. After the Democratic candidate in a previously Republican-held New York seat won a Feb. 13 special election, the margin has only gotten smaller. Disagreements among Republicans over aid to Ukraine, Israel, and border security legislation have practically paralyzed the legislative process. Those and other pressing policies were already hard enough to resolve in divided government, with Democrats holding the Senate majority and President Joe Biden in the White House.
McMorris Rodgers became the third committee chair to announce their retirement recently, along with Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) and Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mike Gallagher (R-WI). But McMorris Rodgers’s departure stands out because under House Republican Conference rules allowing members to be committee chair and/or ranking member for six years, she still has another two-year term to go but is now forsaking.
Natural times for some to leave
Several lawmakers who are leaving the House say they have accomplished what they came to do. Other legislators have claimed the level of partisan politics has exhausted and depleted their ability to create meaningful legislation.
Former Pennsylvania Rep. Jason Altmire, a Democrat, said in an interview with the Washington Examiner magazine that McMorris Rodgers is a good example of a lawmaker achieving her career goals and then stepping down to pave the way for new leadership. However, Altmire said McMorris Rodgers’s retirement, combined with the mass exodus from the House, signals a “disenchantment” of Congress in which “thoughtful leaders” can no longer work together.
“Energy and Commerce Committee is the oldest standing legislative committee in the House and handles issues that are “very consequential,” Altmire said. While not serving on the committee himself, he entered Congress in 2007 and worked with several of the senior committee members who are retiring, such as Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD).
Since he left the House in 2013, Altmire noted it’s become “impossible” for members to work across the aisle. That’s damaging to an exclusive committee like Energy and Commerce, meaning its members can’t sit on other panels.
“Being hindered in the ability to move forward on big issues facing the country because of the internal politics of the institution, and in [McMorris Rodgers’s] case her party, it’s disappointing, just as a citizen, for me, to see really good people leaving under those circumstances,” Altmire added.
Even though McMorris Rodgers has two more years of eligibility as the top Republican on the committee, work on panels like that can take a toll “politically and personally,” Altmire said. “These aren’t committees that you can just mail it in and show up part of the time. You have to work hard, you have to be thoughtful, you have to know the issues. And you’re going to be taking on controversial political issues, which is difficult in your own districts, in your own campaign.”
Some of the policy areas the Energy and Commerce Committee oversees include climate change, pipeline safety and expansion, public health, foreign commerce, and renewable energy — topics that can often lend themselves to partisan differences. Subcommittee on Energy, Climate, and Grid Security Chairman Jeff Duncan (R-SC), who is retiring from Congress in early January 2025, said he believes the Energy Committee has accomplished much this session and noted there are still nine months left to push key policy measures over the finish line, such as the Atomic Energy Advancement Act.
“That’s one thing about Energy and Commerce — we really try to work in a bipartisan fashion,” Duncan said. “But there’s bipartisan support and bicameral support for just modernizing the [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] and getting the nation prepared for what we anticipate to be a nuclear renaissance in this country.”
Duncan said Republicans have always sought to find affordable, reliable, and cleaner energy sources, but “sometimes we’re painted differently.” He said all of his GOP colleagues on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and particularly in the subcommittee he leads, are united to finding alternative energy sources but will also point out the “caveats” to relying solely on those sources that Democrats overlook.
There will be a dramatic loss in institutional knowledge that only comes from years in office when the 12 current committee members depart — in addition to McMorris Rodgers, Duncan, and Sarbanes, there are Reps. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND), Larry Bucshon (R-IN), Michael Burgess (R-TX), Tony Cardenas (D-CA), John Curtis (R-UT), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Debbie Lesko (R-AZ), Greg Pence (R-IN), and Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE). In addition to the nine retirements, Armstrong is running for the North Dakota governorship, Curtis is seeking a Senate seat in Utah, and Lesko is returning home to run for the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.
Despite the losses due to the departures, Duncan said the committee is one “with a lot of talent” and that they will give opportunities to freshman members who rarely get to join exclusive committees right out of the gate.
Many of the departing Energy and Commerce Committee members are senior, highly accomplished lawmakers in safe seats, most serving without fear of competitive elections, so retirement is not their sole option. With McMorris Rodgers leaving, it could have opened the door for members like Sarbanes or Burgess to shift into leadership positions in their parties. However, they instead have opted to retire — which should make people pause, Altmire said.
“You would ask well, ‘Why don’t they just stick around now that she’s leaving?'” Altmire said. “‘Maybe another term or two or three and you could be the chair of this very powerful committee. Why are you leaving now?’”
Departing lawmakers are “thoughtful legislators, and the fact that they’re leaving before they have the opportunity to take the gavel themselves, they’re giving up the chance to rise up within the committee — I think that speaks volumes about how difficult it is to be somebody in Congress today who’s there to get things done,” Altmire said.
Whoever inherits the chairmanship, or ranking member position if Democrats take back the House this November, will play a pivotal role in shaping post-election legislation. Two subcommittee chairmen, Reps. Bob Latta (R-OH) and Brett Guthrie (R-KY), are reportedly vying for the gavel. Altmire, who served with both men, said either one would do well as party leader for the committee given their seasoned work on Capitol Hill.
Lawmakers look at other options
Duncan admitted that Congress has changed significantly in the nearly 14 years he has represented the Palmetto State. Though GOP infighting did not influence his decision to retire, he said he can understand the frustration among his fellow members.
“You saw the infighting last January, with the speaker’s race going [15] rounds, we saw a motion to vacate this fall,” Duncan said. “We saw the whole speaker’s race drama this fall and how long it took, and we continue to see roles being taken down, that sort of thing.”
Duncan added, “What I think others are experiencing, they’re just saying, ‘Look, I’m going [to] do something else and enjoy life a little bit more than, you know, coming up here and not being able to get anything done because the role was taken down or we can’t even do simple things.’”
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Though many people will look back on the 118th Congress as one marked by rising tension and intraparty schisms that caused widespread departures from top committees, Duncan said he hopes voters will appreciate the work that the Energy and Commerce Committee was able to accomplish.
“I think I would love for America to look at the Energy and Commerce Committee and this Congress as one that was focused on taking a leadership role in passing good, comprehensive legislation that helps strengthen America and help lower Americans’ energy costs and help our economy through energy,” the South Carolina congressman said.
