Thursday, July 8th, 2021
Special Feature: Congressional Retirements
It is less than six months before the Iowa caucus, the "official" beginning of the presidential election cycle. Understandably, who will win the Republican nomination and the resulting contest with President Seaborn, the presumptive Democratic nominee, will dominate most election and political coverage until November 2022.
But how the person who wins next November governs will depend in large part on the composition of Congress at the start of January 20, 2023. On the Senate side, Republicans will look to keep their sizable majority, while the composition of the House will depend in large part on the new district maps drawn as a result of the 2020 Census.
The combination of a presidential election cycle and new House maps is perhaps responsible for the large number of members of Congress who have announced their planned departure compared to this point in the 2018 and 2020 election cycles. As each state finalizes the federal district maps it will use for the next decade and more senators finish testing the political waters, this number will continue to grow.
Courtesy of the NBS politics team, here are each of the 21 members of Congress who have already announced that they will not be seeking re-election next year.
Senate
AL: Alan Garland (R) (in office since 2010) — One Congress as chair of the Senate Budget Committee is all that Garland will get. The 73 year-old announced he's hanging up his spurs rather than run again, a decision undoubtedly helped along from undergoing another operation in May to remove melanoma from his skin.
IL: Jasper Irving (R) (in office since 2017) — The conservative-cum-moderate senator from Illinois passed up a tough re-election fight to instead run for the presidency. While time will tell at how successful Irving, or whoever the GOP nominates, are in taking the White House, it's doubtful that they will retain this blue-state seat in 2022.
KS: Sam Wilkinson (R) (in office since 1981) — President
pro tempore and chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee is a pretty good place to end a distinguished Senate career and that’s where Wilkinson finds himself. The president
pro tem will be 84 later this month, and is retiring rather than seeking an eighth term in office.
MI: Randall Thomas (R) (in office since 1999) — Thomas has spent his congressional career frustrating Democrats that they have been unable to take his seat, despite Michigan consistently leaning Democratic. Michigan will miss his leadership of the Senate Finance Committee, even if voters in the state picks someone outside his party to succeed him.
OK: Robert Roanoke (R) (in office since 1987) — After six terms being a good friend to the beef industry, Pentagon and voters in his state, Robert Roanoke is retiring. The chair of the Senate Indigenous Affairs Committee plans to return home to his ranch and watch what is sure to be a brutal primary battle within the Republican Party to succeed him.
SD: Robin Fulton (R) (in office since 2003) — Fulton's announcement that he had been diagnosed with stage II pancreatic cancer led to an outpouring of support from the entire Senate and from voters in his home state. It is very unlikely that he will live long enough to see the end of his successor's term in 2029.
House of Representatives
AL-01: Jim Doldier (R) (in office since 2011) — Garland's retirement will cause at least one shake-up in Alabama's House delegation, with Doldier giving up his Mobile-based seat to try for the Senate. Like with the open Senate seat, whoever wins the Republican primary for the first district will be its next representative.
AZ-08: Troy Foster (R) (in office since 2013) — While term-limited governor Scott Phillips (R) is seriously eyeing Antonio Rodrigues' (D) Senate seat, Foster has already declared his intention to become Arizona’s next governor. He's giving up his safe House seat to do so, although the eighth district may get slightly more competitive after redistricting.
CA-49: Alton Moore (R) (in office since 1999) — Moore has opted to try a very long-shot run for president rather than face a redistricting and likely a tough re-election fight. California lost a seat in the last Census and the new district boundaries will play a large part in determining who will take over the district after Moore, chair of the House Rules Administration Committee, leaves Congress.
GA-11: Dominic Rudig (R) (in office since 1995) — Rudig is packing it in after 14 terms after drawing yet another right-wing primary opponent whose sole point of contention is Rudig's pro-choice stance. It is likely that a few more candidates will now jump into the GOP primary now that Rudig is way out.
HI-02: Evelyn Bindo (D) (in office since 2005) — The "jokester of the House" is taking the opportunity of her district getting new boundaries to retire. Bindo is 82 and is likely to have a huge say in which Democrat will succeed her in this deep-blue seat.
IL-13: Joyce Pearce (D) (in office since 2013) — Pearce is trying to make the move up to the Senate to replace presidential hopeful Jasper Irving. As it currently stands, her district is competitive, but that might change after Illinois releases its new district boundaries.
IL-17: Gene Kramer (D) (in office since 1987) — It will be hard to replicate the success in downstate Illinois of Kramer, who heads Democrats on the House Education and Workforce Committee. Illinois' loss of a congressional seat means that Kramer’s district would become significantly more Republican, and it seems like he's not prepared for an even tougher re-election fight than the one he gutted out in 2020.
IA-03: Kevin Nix (R) (in office since 2011) — Iowa Republicans have been itching to unseat Governor James Edwards (D) for three years, and Nix is the strongest candidate so far willing to try and unseat him. If Des Moines remains in the 3rd district after redistricting, Democrats have a real shot to flip the seat.
MN-02: Leif Erikson (R) (in office since 1987) — Perhaps the closest we’ll ever get in Congress to a real-life viking from Minnesota, Erikson hasn't had a serious contest in decades. But his age is catching up with him: his beard is now gray, and he's had open-heart surgery twice in the past five years. This district could go either way next year without him, but that of course depends on what its boundaries look like after 2022.
MN-07: Thom Grunder (D) (in office since 1973) — Fifty years in Congress will be enough for the Dean of the House and ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee. Republicans have long been targeting his district (currently it is the most Republican seat held by a Democrat), and regardless of what its exact boundaries will be in 2022, it's as good as theirs without Grunder to compete against.
NY-19: Del Roberts (R) (in office since 2011) — With former governor Rob Cole more interested in challenging Tim Burrell for the Senate, Roberts has stepped up to try to unseat Governor Hakeem El-Amin. It's a long shot, and Roberts' scant record of accomplishments in Congress is unlikely to persuade blue-state voters to take a chance on him.
OH-09: Josie Bail (D) (in office since 2003) — The Democratic Caucus Chair is trying to become the Buckeye State's seventh governor to have served non-consecutive terms. The "Snake by the Lake" is considered one of the ugliest gerrymanders in the nation, and hopefully reforms to Ohio's map-drawn process will give Bail's successor a nicer district map to hang on their office wall.
PA-10: Chris Franklin (R) (in office since 1987) — A self-described "Rockefeller Republican", Franklin is a member of a dying breed of Republican politician that was briefly reinvigorated by Arnold Vinick in 2006. With Pennsylvania losing a House seat next year, we can only guess how the tenth district will lean politically in the next election.
TN-04: Walter Peterson (R) (in office since 2011) — Terrance Klein (D) is undoubtedly the most vulnerable incumbent governor up for re-election in the upcoming election cycle. The Volunteer State is deeply Republican and Peterson is hoping that the state's natural partisan lean will overcome Klein's solid approval ratings.
TX-29: Tim Fields (D) (in office since 1991) — Fields could have been either Speaker of the House or Governor of Texas, but the superior caucus campaign of Mark Sellner and a bribery scandal derailed his hopes of career advancement. His successor, unless the legislature changes the district dramatically in redistricting, will be a Democrat and almost certainly a Hispanic one at that.
WV-03: Charles Hacker (R) (in office since 1989) — The third district is going to be eliminated after next year, and Hacker is leaving with it. The dean of West Virginia's congressional delegation, Hacker is one of four current representatives who switched parties while in office (in his case, to the GOP after being elected as a Democrat).
