Eight times as many Republicans fleeing Congress than Democrats John Byrne

Published: Tuesday October 16, 2007



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Print This Email This The announcements seem so frequent they no longer appear to be news -- yet another Republican congressmember is planning retirement. Last night, news broke that yet another Republican wouldn't run for reelection: Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, of Texas. All told, 17 Republican lawmakers have their sights on Capitol Hill's exit signs. Democrats, however, aren't leaving. Just two Democrats have called it quits -- both of them leaving the House to seek higher office in the Senate. An article Tuesday in the Los Angeles Times seeks to illuminate the cause. The piece paints a Republican caucus that is disillusioned with Bush's poll numbers, the war in Iraq, the possibility of a soft economy and perhaps most importantly: life in the minority. "I don't like being in the minority," Rep. Ray LaHood (R-IL), who was first elected in 1994, told the Times. "It's not that much fun, and the prospects for the future don't look that good." The numbers of retiring congressmembers aren't out of line with previous sessions. What makes the current situation unique is the number of Republicans who are retiring relative to the number of Democrats. Also startling is the Democrats' fundraising prowess, particularly in the House: the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has $22.1 million on hand to the Republicans' $1.6 million. That's a more than 13 to 1 advantage. The piece notes that "many of the Republicans choosing to retire are older, more pragmatic lawmakers, such as Rep. Ralph Regula of Ohio; moderates like Rep. Deborah Pryce of Ohio and Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia; and mavericks like Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. These departures reflect the generational and ideological changes that have pushed the Republican contingent in Congress steadily to the right over the last decade." Former GOP official Eddie Mahe told the paper: "If I was talking to my favorite brother-in-law and he was thinking about running for Congress, I would say, 'Why would you want to do that now?' If anybody's not smart enough to figure that out, I don't want them around anyway."

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