The 117th Congress is set to end this fall without ever having had a full House.
It’s an unusual situation that, in an era of an evenly divided electorate, has made governing in the Senate and House more of a challenge than the days of large majorities. House Democrats after the 2020 election have had only four or at most five votes to spare at any given time in the 435-member chamber. At times, House Democrats’ operating margin has shrunk to three or even two seats, assuming no Republicans backed their legislation.
When the current Congress meets for a lame duck session after the Nov. 8 midterm elections, the lineup will be 220 Democrats to 213 Republicans. Republican Rudy Yakym is set to replace the late GOP Rep. Jackie Walorski for the final weeks of her term in the north-central Indiana 2nd Congressional District.
But the September resignations by a pair of Florida Democrats, Reps. Charlie Crist and Ted Deutch, ensured the 117th Congress wouldn’t have a full House roster. Crist, the Florida Democratic gubernatorial nominee, quit the House early to focus on his statewide race. Deutsch, meanwhile, already had another job lined up. On Oct. 1, he became CEO of the American Jewish Committee.
From the start of this Congress in January 2021, the House has been nearly as divided as the 50-50 Senate, where Democrats hold the majority thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote.
Lawmaker vacancies started morbidly even before lawmakers were sworn in for the current Congress. On Dec. 29, 2020, Rep.-elect Luke Letlow (R-LA) died from complications caused by COVID-19 five days before he was due to take office. That ensured that when the House opened for business on Jan. 3, 2021, there already was a vacancy.
The seat Letlow won in 2020 was not filled until after his wife, GOP Rep. Julia Letlow, won a special election in the central and northeast Louisiana 5th Congressional District and took office on April 14, 2021. By that time, President Joe Biden’s administration had plucked several Democratic House members to join its ranks, including Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM) to be interior secretary. Staggered dates of special elections, which are set individually by governors, ensured there was never a complete House roster at any one time.
Further resignations kept the House at less-than-full capacity. For instance, Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) resigned on March 31 after being convicted by a jury on three federal charges of lying to investigators and concealing information about foreign campaign contributions. And a pair of House members, Reps. Tom Reed (R-NY) and Filemon Vela (D-TX) had already announced their retirements at the end of this term but quit Congress early to join law-and-lobbying firms in Washington, D.C.
Natural causes took their toll on the House roster, too. Letlow’s death was only the second by a House member-elect in the last 90 years. After the 117th Congress convened on Jan. 3, 2021, five more incumbent lawmakers died in office. That was the most since the 110th Congress, from 2007-09, when seven House members died.
It’s not the first time there was no full roster in the House. The 85th Congress (1957-1959) never had all 435 House seats filled at once. And there was an instance of a single House seat never getting filled for an entire Congress. The 4th Congressional District of Massachusetts never elected a representative to the 31st Congress (1849-1851) because no candidate received a majority of the vote. The state conducted 11 runoff elections following the general election, and none of them produced a winner. The seat wasn’t filled until after the next Congress convened when Benjamin Thompson was elected to the seat on May 26, 1851, 813 days later.
