We are used to congressmen running for reelection. But, in surprising numbers, they instead are running for the exits. Twenty-four House members thus far have announced they will not seek another term. Some certainly declined another run due to age. However, the numbers are too high to make that the only explanation.
The retirements seem especially troubling for the GOP. They make up 14 of the 24. Their crop of retirees also included an overall younger cohort than their Democratic counterparts. The youngest is the most recent: Mike Gallagher, who represents Wisconsin’s 8th district. Gallagher is only 39 and was widely seen as a rising star both in the party and in Congress.
This is all true despite the GOP being in the majority. It is taking place even though Republicans have a good chance of increasing that majority in the 2024 election.
What might explain these seemingly counterintuitive retirements? Some have argued it portends an internal sense that the GOP will not do as well as many right now expect in the House and the Senate elections come November. Perhaps that is true, though it seems hard to see what information of significance these congressmen would possess that the general public would not.
More likely it comes from the institutional state of the House of Representatives. Congress has not been well-run in some time. However, this House has gone from badly run to utter dysfunction. And the Republicans — the majority party — bear the lion’s share of the blame.
The dysfunction began as soon as the GOP took control of the chamber. The GOP won the House in the 2022 midterm elections but severely underperformed. The resulting majority was razor-thin with next to no margin for defections on any substantive vote. Yet the Republican majority continued to be what it’s been for some time: deeply divided between its members and with deep flaws in many who comprised that membership.
This problematic combination of size, division, and quality erupted in the House’s opening act of choosing a speaker. Rep. Kevin McCarthy eventually secured the job but with the caucus’s warts and weaknesses all in open view. He did not last long in the end, with a small cadre of Republicans joining with a united Democratic Party to oust him in October. The new speaker, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), already skates on thin ice.
The GOP caucus has shown a lack of self-knowledge and control that has spilled into embarrassing votes, such as the first attempted impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, which likely would not have happened in the past.
Thus, congressmen such as Gallagher might not be exiting the House because they think the GOP will lose its majority status this fall. They might be retiring because they don’t think it matters. Gallagher was part of a rare breed already in the House. He tended to act with professionalism and competence, seeking to construct real legislation that could have an actual good impact on addressing the country’s needs.
But that is not how many House members, including in the GOP, see their office. They care little about actual legislation. They know little, and care almost nothing, about strengthening Congress’s powers in relationship to the rest of the national government. Instead, they think more about influence on social media and building toward other positions, either executive offices or lucrative private jobs.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM RESTORING AMERICA
This growing posture by congressmen of course flatly contradicts how the founders structured our legislative branch. Federalist 51 said, “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.” Politicians must see their personal advancement as tied to the protection and enhancement of the institution in which they serve. And they must do so through wise and vigorous exercise of the power given to them by the Constitution — in Congress’s case, the legislative power.
There is hope that the House might improve, including a future GOP majority. But with the retirements we now see, it is likely to get worse, even much worse, before it gets better. In the end, it will take acts of the public, through the ballot box, to demand Congress be populated again by serious adults aware of and committed to constitutional government. Maybe then men such as Gallagher will return for the good of the House and of the country.
Adam Carrington is an associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College.
