Good one.
Are there any additional (R) House members who might just call it quits in the next few weeks? This could lead to a very… interesting… summer.
Kay Granger announced she was stepping down as chair of House Appropriations as soon as the conference names a replacement. She’s already retiring at the end of this term, it’s odd that she would give up her committee chair this early.
Quitting would be ok. What I’m hoping for is someone switching from R to D. I know it’s highly unlikely, but it would be nice to see. Especially if it’s one of those things that happens by surprise, like if a current Republican representative votes for Jeffries during the next Speaker vote (assuming there is one before the next Congress).
The problem with anyone switching from R to D or vice versa is that it is probably the end of their career. Because not only would you lose all your original voters, but you wouldn’t get many votes from your new party either.
A Republican who goes blue will be a pariah in the GOP but Democrats would see no reason to vote for a red-purple guy when they could vote True Blue. The exception would be if you’re an unusually popular guy with a wide following in your region that goes beyond party, like some local celebrity or something.
I don’t think that will happen. I heard on the radio that some Democrats may vote to keep Johnson now, I found an article saying much the same:
Reuters: US House Democrats offer to protect Republican Johnson for Ukraine aid
Note that it’s conditional, so not guaranteed.
Once you’ve announced you’re not running again, you’re a lame duck and no one is going to do you any favors in hopes of long-term payback; might as well get out now.
I’m assuming it would be someone whose political career is already over and they’re just serving out their last term. It would only take 2 at this point to get it done.
But you’re screwing your party. I’d stay until the end and keep voting. This would be different if there was a large majority.
Ken Buck made it clear he’s sick of the bullshit from his side. “We’ve taken impeachment and we’ve made it a social media issue as opposed to a constitutional concept. This place keeps going downhill and I don’t need to spend more time here." Hate him for his beliefs but at least he knew how things were supposed to work. The lunatics have too much power and one of them is running in his district.
A lot of off-the-record chatter that things aren’t just “dysfunctional”, the word used most often to describe the chaos in the Republican house, but that it’s mean, backstabbing, clique-y, uncomfortable, and just plain exhausting. There’s no cordial disagreement between Republican colleagues, there’s varying levels of warfare. And there’s always the very real danger to their personal safety and the safety of their families if the fringe decides to set the base on them for real or imagined sins. I’d bail, too. If it makes things hard on the Chaos Caucus then that’s just an added benefit to escaping the madhouse.
Apparently it just doesn’t feel like his party anymore.
You’d also kill your value as a lobbyist, shut yourself out of employment at Republican-friendly boards and foundations, and foreclose any possibility of a future run for office. Even for those Members who are really ready to “retire” retire, they’d be burning personal and professional relationships that they spent their entire careers building.
And another Republican representative had decided he wants no more. Mark Gallagher of Wisconsin is leaving effective April 19.
I’m betting there will be three more in the next month. Nothing specific, just a feeling.
But what if you’re quitting because you’ve decided your party is screwing you?
– not that I really think any Republican in the House right now will switch sides. I’d expect they’d already have done so if they were going to.
If that happens, does it tip the House to the Democrats?
As we’ve heard, there is open warfare between Republicans in the house. I think those personal and professional relationships burnt down a while ago.
Maybe this would violate some state laws, but, to encourage party switching, could the Democratic National Committee make a rule exempting any R to D party changing member of congress from a primary challenge at the next election?
And next week already begins the sequence of legislative work for FY25 Appropriations, with next shutdown deadline next 1 October (a month before the election). Let someone else, someone who may want to earn staying in that post come January if they hold the House, be the one who earns it.
Not necessarily in the House – but in the Conservasphere outside. Your RW think tanks/lobbying firms/trade groups and your long-time RW Conservative social circle including members of your Fundie Church will not be happy with someone who did something that helped strengthen the Libs, or even worse, helped raise a tax/impose a regulation/etc.
Spending your last 6 months in office being a thorn in the side of the Republicans Leadership-that-is will be held against you more harshly than 6 whole terms being a good soldier for the Leadership-that-WAS will be rewarded.
Plus as mentioned there’s the realistic risk of actual personal aggression from the MAGA side.
At DNC level it probably could not be enforced on the individual states who are the ones who run the election.