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Republican Retirements

Another one going toodles:

Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) will resign from Congress at the end of September, the most recent in a string of Republicans who have decided against running for re-election.
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His district is fairly solidly Republican, so I doubt it will flip. He has a child that is going to have special needs.
 
Add another one to the list for a total of 5 from Texas alone, sad.:

GOP Rep. Bill Flores announced Wednesday his plans to retire from Congress at the end of his term, becoming the fifth Texas Republican to do so this election cycle.

Flores won his first election in 2010 by defeating a Democrat during President Barack Obama's first midterm election and rose to become a chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee.
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plague311 said:
I actually don't have much against the "good" conservatives dropping out of the party and congress all together. As has been stated in the other thread, the Republican Party can really not be saved at this point. No one in the party has the balls to actually save it. Best case scenario is the party fractures, none of them hold any real power until a 3rd party shows up that goes back to the center a lot more and sticks to the old conservative ideas.
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Keep in mind that those 'good' conservatives dropping out of congress served under the republican banner for years, while the party regularly gerrymandered political districts and suppressed minority votes. Most of them voted for the Obamacare repeal and the deficit-expanding tax cuts. And almost all republican senators voted in favor of putting Drunky McRapeface and and Neil "I'm glad Kavanaugh is around so I don't look as scummy" Gorsuch on the supreme court.

Any 'good' republican would not be dropping not now.... they would have left the party years ago.
 
Is there any good analysis out there about these retirements? Is the assumption that these GOP congressional members aren't confident they can retain their seats? Do they fear a Democratic win, or a primary challenger from the right?
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Is there any good analysis out there about these retirements? Is the assumption that these GOP congressional members aren't confident they can retain their seats? Do they fear a Democratic win, or a primary challenger from the right?
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Or even just how statistically significant all these resignations are.

After all, there are hundreds of congress critters in Washington. You have to expect a few to resign in any given election cycle. How far above the normal is this for the 2020 election?
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Is there any good analysis out there about these retirements? Is the assumption that these GOP congressional members aren't confident they can retain their seats? Do they fear a Democratic win, or a primary challenger from the right?
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There's an article by 538 that discusses it with several different people. A few tidbits:

geoffrey.skelley: But one thing to keep in mind with the seeming glut of Texas retirements is that Texas has one of the earliest candidate filing deadlines of any state — December 2019 — because of its March 2020 primary. So if Texas members want to retire, they probably want to do it as early as possible to give their parties enough of a heads-up to find new candidates and get organized for an open-seat race.
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nrakich: One interesting pattern in the eight House GOP retirements is that three of the retirees are from Texas — the most of any state. Obviously, there’s been a lot of buzz about Democrats breaking through there electorally, so maybe this is a sign that Texas Republicans think that is a real threat.

And two of those retirees sit in vulnerable seats — Pete Olson (in Texas’s 22nd District) and Hurd (in Texas’s 23rd District).
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It's a really, really long article.
 
plague311 said:
There's an article by 538 that discusses it with several different people. A few tidbits:
nrakich: One interesting pattern in the eight House GOP retirements is that three of the retirees are from Texas — the most of any state. Obviously, there’s been a lot of buzz about Democrats breaking through there electorally, so maybe this is a sign that Texas Republicans think that is a real threat.

It's a really, really long article.
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The article mentions another issue: Even without further Democratic breakthroughs in the house, the republicans will still probably be in a minority position after 2020. Being in the minority party in congress can be boring, with little influence. Some GOP congress critters may not be leaving because they fear losing their own seat, but they think they will win and then have to contend with having little power for the next 2 years.
 
What a bunch of cowards. Stay and save your party. Fight the fight that needs fighting. Resigning just clears the way for more Trump traitors who won't be loyal to the nation. The country needs all loyal Americans just now to push back the tide of Trump and treason.
 
Segnosaur said:
The article mentions another issue: Even without further Democratic breakthroughs in the house, the republicans will still probably be in a minority position after 2020. Being in the minority party in congress can be boring, with little influence. Some GOP congress critters may not be leaving because they fear losing their own seat, but they think they will win and then have to contend with having little power for the next 2 years.
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Or they've got lucrative lobbyist jobs lined up.
 
Segnosaur said:
The article mentions another issue: Even without further Democratic breakthroughs in the house, the republicans will still probably be in a minority position after 2020. Being in the minority party in congress can be boring, with little influence. Some GOP congress critters may not be leaving because they fear losing their own seat, but they think they will win and then have to contend with having little power for the next 2 years.
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I'd argue the opposite is true. It's much easier to be a house member if you aren't in power. Governing is hard, but backseat driving while out of power is easy. Just grandstand a bunch and get huffy when the vote goes against you.

It's like the whole repeal Obamacare thing. All those years of talking a big game about repealing the ACA, when the Republicans finally get into a position to do so, they choke. Turns out, details matter. Actually having power is much trickier than being a powerless demagogue.
 
The Republicans are in a minority position now and that doesn't seem to stop them.

They are just better at getting people in key positions and rigging the system so them being the minority doesn't matter.
 
I've lost track, but it appears I've missed one:

Veteran Wisconsin Republican Representative Jim Sensenbrenner announced his retirement from Congress on Wednesday, making the former House Judiciary Committee chairman the 15th GOP lawmaker to say he will step aside before next year's elections.
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Craig4 said:
What a bunch of cowards. Stay and save your party. Fight the fight that needs fighting. Resigning just clears the way for more Trump traitors who won't be loyal to the nation. The country needs all loyal Americans just now to push back the tide of Trump and treason.
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And the highlighted bit is why we should want these guys to retire. Incumbent candidates win re-election at a simply ridiculously high rate. For the US House, it's literally never been below about 85% in my entire life, and it's often higher than that. The US Senate used to have a higher turn-over rate, but since 1988, it's been 80% or more pretty much every election. Retirement is often the only time many such seat will change parties. And that change will only be more likely if the new candidate is a full-on Kool-Aide drinking Trumpkin.
 
No it's not. It's good for the nation for there to be two parties both loyal to our basic principals but always contesting for power. Now we have one party loyal to the nation, most of one party that is not and the dissenters of that part throwing up their hands and going home. As long as both parties are fundamentally loyal to the country it's good that they keep in contest. Right now, the only vote that is not treason is a vote for a democrat. That's not a healthy place for our great experiment to be in. When the choice is Democrat or treason, most of the electorate will choose Democrat. That's a road to one party rule. Our democracy is dependent on the quality of major party competition which can't happen when one party collapses.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
I'd argue the opposite is true. It's much easier to be a house member if you aren't in power. Governing is hard, but backseat driving while out of power is easy. Just grandstand a bunch and get huffy when the vote goes against you.

It's like the whole repeal Obamacare thing. All those years of talking a big game about repealing the ACA, when the Republicans finally get into a position to do so, they choke. Turns out, details matter. Actually having power is much trickier than being a powerless demagogue.
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It's much, much easier to tear something down than it is to build it.
 
Craig4 said:
No it's not. It's good for the nation for there to be two parties both loyal to our basic principals but always contesting for power. Now we have one party loyal to the nation, most of one party that is not and the dissenters of that part throwing up their hands and going home. As long as both parties are fundamentally loyal to the country it's good that they keep in contest. Right now, the only vote that is not treason is a vote for a democrat. That's not a healthy place for our great experiment to be in. When the choice is Democrat or treason, most of the electorate will choose Democrat. That's a road to one party rule. Our democracy is dependent on the quality of major party competition which can't happen when one party collapses.
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Stacyhs said:
It's much, much easier to tear something down than it is to build it.
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This quote also applies. I'm aware that having one entirely dysfunctional party is overall bad for the country. Unfortunately, I also can't see any way to fix the GOP without just burning it all down and starting over.

Sometimes an old building is so dilapidated, it takes far more time and effort to shore it up that to just demolish it and start over. That sucks for the people still living in it, who would like to just repair it, in hopes of it becoming what it once was. But just plastering over the major structural flaws never works. The Crazy Wing has taken over the GOP, and they won't willingly give up control to the non-crazy wing. I suppose we could have every registered Democrat sign up as a Republican instead, and vote in primaries en mass for the least-crazy candidate, but that's unlikely to happen. There are not enough non-crazy Republicans left to fix it by themselves.
 
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