Frustrated lawmakers run for the exits: 'DC is broken'

The public has increasingly soured on Congress — and now, some House lawmakers are starting to agree.

With legislating all but brought to a halt and partisanship at an alarming high, members of Congress in both parties are running for the exits, opting out of another term on Capitol Hill to vie for higher office or, in some cases, leave politics altogether.

It is a trend that skyrocketed in recent months — amid a tumultuous 10-week stretch on Capitol Hill — and one that is likely to continue through the end of this year, highlighting the challenges of navigating a polarized, and oftentimes chaotic, era of Congress.

“Right now, Washington, D.C. is broken,” Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) said in a statement when announcing that she would not run for reelection. “[I]t is hard to get anything done.”

“Too often elected officials chase the 24-hour news cycle, focusing on the issue of the day, and when you look back there is little to show for it,” said Rep. Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.), an 18-year veteran of the House who has also opted against running for reelection.

Thirty House members — 19 Democrats and 11 Republicans — have announced that they will not seek reelection next year, covering a wide range of congressional seniority, post-House plans and reasons for jumping ship. Sixteen are retiring from public office, 11 are running for seats in the Senate, and three are eyeing other government positions.

The list includes, most recently, Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio), who accepted an offer to lead Youngstown State University as president; and Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), who is hanging up her hat in Congress after 30 years. They are joined by Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-Wash.), the 49-year-old lawmaker who had a stint running the New Democrat Coalition; Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who is one of three House members jockeying for a Senate seat; and Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), who frequently draws media attention for criticizing the GOP’s stance on election denialism.

Additionally, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) is running for Houston mayor, and Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) is mounting a longshot bid for the Democratic nomination for president. Both, however, can remain in Congress and run for reelection if they lose or drop out of their other races.

The number of House members opting against reelection in 2024 is not necessarily unusual — 49 tapped out in 2022 and 36 in 2020. But unlike past cycles, when the exiting lawmakers have tended to tilt heavily toward one party or the other, depending on the moment’s political winds, the current departures are coming from both parties in a cycle when control of the House is up for grabs.

Matthew Green, a politics professor at Catholic University, pointed out the frustration some lawmakers have voiced when announcing their future plans.

“At this point, the number of retirements is not incredibly high, per se, but I think that the reason some of the members are giving for retiring is indicative of possibly some deeper dissatisfaction with Congress,” Green told The Hill in an interview.

Half of the House members not seeking reelection next year — 15 lawmakers — revealed their plans in October and November, a hectic two months on Capitol Hill that had lawmakers reeling from a near-government shutdown; witnessing the first successful ouster of a sitting Speaker; and grappling with the ensuing three-week saga to elect a new top lawmaker, which shut down legislative business in the chamber.

“With the October that we had, I think the American people could be forgiven for thinking that the word unprecedented was just another name for Tuesday for a while,” Laura Blessing, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Government Affairs Institute, told The Hill in an interview. “Everything was unprecedented for a while.”

In the past two weeks alone, one Republican accused another of elbowing him in the kidney at the Capitol; a committee chairman called another member a “smurf;” and a congresswoman called her colleague a “p‑‑‑‑.”

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), who has served in Congress since 1996, reflected on the current atmosphere in Washington when announcing his retirement.

“I’m not certain that two more years in Congress in this climate is the best way to deal with things I care about,” Blumenauer told Willamette Week in an interview.

The previous two months in Washington are largely emblematic of the entire span of the 118th Congress, which has been marked by bitter battles inside the parties and between the two, a pair of shutdown cliffs, a near-economic default and, all in all, little law-making.

Just 21 pieces of legislation have been signed into law this year, far fewer than this point in the 117th Congress, when Democrats had unanimous control, and during 116th Congress, which was another run of divided government.

“I have been here nine years, and Congress refuses to deal with the big issues that we have to deal with,” Buck told CNN in an interview when asked what drove his retirement decision. He went on to list the sustainability of Social Security and Medicare and the ballooning debt.

“We really need to work on issues; there’s no incentive structure here to do that,” he added, before knocking the belief among many Republicans that the 2020 presidential election was stolen — and criticizing them for defending prisoners from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

Blessing, of Georgetown University, said Congress is “becoming a place where you don’t feel effective.”

“A place that has an environment that’s too negative for you to professionally function in,” she added.

The low productivity is translating to a negative perception among Americans. Congress, an institution that has never enjoyed overwhelming public approval, is currently seeing its lowest marks in years: Just 13 percent of the American public approve of the way Congress is handing its job, the lowest mark since November 2017.

Not all lawmakers, to be sure, are leaving Congress because of the body’s ineffectiveness. Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.), who was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease earlier this year, said she was retiring to spend her "valued time” with loved ones; and Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) said his cancer diagnosis this year — which he said was “gone” in May after surgery — drove his decision to step down from public office.

Rep. Jeff Jackson (D-N.C.), a first-term lawmaker, launched a bid for North Carolina attorney general one day after the state’s GOP-controlled Legislature approved a new congressional map that drew his district red.

The list of lawmakers leaving the House is likely to increase in the coming weeks and months, especially after the Thanksgiving and December holiday season, a time that lawmakers often talk with family and reassess their political futures.

Inside Elections reported earlier this month that Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah) is making calls to succeed Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) in the upper chamber, after writing in a Desert News op-ed in early October that he “decided to stay out of the U.S. Senate race at this time.” After the Inside Elections report, Politico said Curtis met with Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Green, the Catholic University professor, said more retirements could be announced after the holidays because the window for when lawmakers can announce their retirements and still give candidates a chance to campaign is narrowing.

But he also referenced the “toxic” nature of serving in Congress.

“If the reasons that members are unhappy is because Congress is a toxic place,” Green said, “it would not surprise me to see a lot more retirements in the next several weeks.”