So, here’s an odd take on the upcoming 2018 congressional elections.
So far, we’ve seen a bunch of the Other Party’s Representatives not running for re-election, and not very many from My Party. At the moment ballotpedia shows 28 (today Darrell Issa announced he is retiring, so it’s really 29) to 14. As as Jon Bernstein says, this is the sort of thing that political scientists think lays the groundwork for a wave election. Or, rather, it’s a feedback situation—because there’s a wave election coming, people from the party that expects to lose its majority take the opportunity to retire, which means that there are open seats that are easier to flip, which makes for a bigger wave. The party that expects a wave finds it easier to recruit good candidates (and to raise money) in districts that aren’t ordinarily competitive, which makes for a bigger wave as well.
Awesome!
Now, my odd take: I’d like to see more Representatives from My Party join that list and not run for re-election.
Here’s why: if there is a wave election in 2018, which is far from certain but looks distinctly possible, then there will probably be another wave election the other way, either in 2022 or 2024. Maybe, maybe not—heck, there may not be a 2024. But going by the last three decades, I would say that there’s a very good chance of the right conditions for the Other Party to flip a bunch of seats back at some point in the not-too-distant future. And at that point a bunch of Representatives from My Party will decide that it’s time to retire, setting up a feedback loop and fights for open seats in tough conditions.
Let’s take, as a more-or-less random example, Bobby Scott, of Virginia’s 3rd district. I have nothing against the man, no reason to want him out of the House. He’s seventy years old, which isn’t a terrible mark against him as a Congressman, if he’s in good shape. But in 2024 he’ll be 77. If he retires now, and the 3rd district seat is open in 2018, there’s a very good chance that our Party will recruit a terrific candidate, and that the Other Party will have more difficulty recruiting, and that with one thing and another, he will hand over the seat to someone he is glad to see in it. If I’m right about the future and he leaves an open seat in 2024, without the incumbency advantage in a bad year for our Party, we could easily lose that seat. Pete DeFazio of Oregon’s 4th is 70 as well. Colin Peterson of Minnesota’s 7th is 73 already. Michael Doyle of Pennsylvania’s 14th isn’t quite as old, but other than that, I think the situation is much the same.
There’s redistricting coming up, too— Raul Grijalva’s seat in Arizona’s 3rd is probably safe as long as the borders remain the same, but Arizona seems likely to gain a seat in 2022, which means that the borders will not remain. If the redistricting makes it difficult for him (sometimes Congressmen have to move house to stay in their district), and the other conditions look lousy, and he retires and leaves it open in a bad year, who knows? Marcy Kaptur of Ohio’s 9th could face something similar, or Bob Brady of Pennsylvania’s 1st. If Connecticut loses a seat, it could be Rosa DeLauro or John Larson. Tennessee’s 5th district seems like a safe seat, but if they redistrict a bit and Jim Cooper leaves it open in a bad year, who knows?
Now, do I really want all of those fine Representatives to retire this year? No, I do not. I don’t want to give up the incumbency advantage, and I don’t want to give up the expertise that they have—if my Party takes back the House, I want John Larson there representing my own district, not some newbie from nowhere. At the same time, the cumulative effect of these ten Representatives—and another ten Representatives in similar situations who I suspect I could identify if it would help—choosing to do what is natural and right by staying on for an easy election is bad for the policy outcomes that they all pretty much want. With tremendous respect, I would like each of them to strongly consider the option of retiring this year.
I have been saying for some time that Nancy Pelosi should announce that the next Congress would be her final Congress. I think I’m coming up on ten years of saying that. Each time I say it, I say that I don’t want her to retire yet, just to prepare for retirement soon. I still don’t want her to retire yet… but it’s clear that she won’t retire until past whatever that optimal time would be. Among the things that will be lost will be her opportunity to help choose and to greatly influence the next Congressional Leader of Our Party. The same is true on a lesser scale for all those people I mention above.
So that’s my take: we need to take advantage of the conditions of a potential wave election by (in some measure) changing those conditions to make them less favorable. But it still makes sense! To me, anyway.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
You make a strong case for a wave election being a good election for retirements on the side riding the wave, and I’m inclined to agree both with your reasoning and with your assessment that it runs counter to the self-interest psychology that is likely primary in elected officials’ decision-making.
I wonder what the calculus looks like from the campaign finance side in a wave election? Popular incumbents who keep seats safe and discourage strong challengers and who are strong fundraisers themselves are seats where for the party can readily raise more than it spends, whereas contested primaries and hotly contested general elections are seats where the party may need to spend all or more than it raises from that seat in order to achieve electoral advantage. To what extent, then, does the stable base of secure incumbents contribute to the financial outflow that enables the party to contest other districts successfully during a wave election?
Another factor in the calculus about retirements has to do with the disproportionate benefits in our system of achieving a majority in the House of Representatives, especially under the current conditions of maximum partisanship created by the Republican commitment to rule unilaterally, preferring failure before compromise. It may not make sense to do too much planning for 2024 when the existential crisis of government facing the nation means that in 2018 it’s desperately important for the Democratic Party to overcome gerrymandering, voter suppression, and its own historic problems with turning out its voters in midterm elections to achieve a majority in the House.
It’s quite possible that even operating under that imperative, it would be wise for the Democratic House to identify 10 retirement opportunities where a wave election could help transfer the benefits of incumbency to a new Democratic representative in a seat that is not highly secure to help shore up the party’s position against the next Republican wave. I think that’s a great strategic question for the Democratic Party to be asking, frankly. I’d expect that there are more factors than just a particular seat’s own dynamics that would need to play in to such a strategic assessment. I also think that the Supreme Court’s rulings on the constitutionality of egregious partisan gerrymandering will have a very substantial influence on how these strategic questions would be answered.
The fund-raising is a good point—could the Party afford to lose the fund-raising skills (and cheap campaigns) of a John Larson for 2018? There’s a lot to balance, here. And of course there’s the question of whether there are good candidates to choose from in the district (our Party hasn’t been focused, really, on that kind of baton-handing transfer, which is probably good for participation and diversity but still a drawback to winning elections) if the seat is open. I’m definitely hesitant to think there’s a definite list of ten or twelve—or even that there’s an ideal number—of Representatives that should be pushed, er, nudged toward retirement this year.
And yeah—redistricting, the courts and the census are going to be the details where a whole hellful of devils will reside for the next four years. Sigh.
Thanks,
-V.
This article adds a lot to the discussion, I think: http://www.honestgraft.com/2018/01/will-2018-elections-create-another.html
David Hopkins makes the point that the unusually large class of Congressional frosh (that we hope will actually happen) will have an unusually large influence on the leadership change that must happen in the next few years. That’s potentially terrific! But it means that recruiting good candidates, by which I mean not only candidates who can win but candidates who will be good congressmen if they do win, is even more important in a potential wave election.
Also, of course, the Party can (and used to) assist Congressional frosh through their inexperience, but if they don’t trust the leadership in the first place, that’s going to be more difficult.
Thanks,
-V.
Another thing to add to this—the wave election of 1994 that swept Newt Gingrich ever-so-briefly into the Speakership elected 73 new Republican Representatives and only 13 new Democrats. But among those Democratic Reps was Michael Doyle, who I mentioned above, and three others who still serving. There are only four Rs from that class who are now in their twelfth terms, and two of them have announced that they will not be seeking a thirteenth.
I suppose the point is that Dems did win a few seats in 94, and that the reps in those ‘safe’ seats have been important and influential in part because they were safe. But also that any victory we hope for this November will be impermanent, as impermanent as 1994 was for the Other Party, and it would be wise to plan with that in mind.
https://twitter.com/HotlineJosh/status/958038634183233540
Thanks,
-V.