With retirement fever becoming an epidemic on Capitol Hill this week, I thought it would be useful to take a look back at how the open seat picture unfolded in the 2006 election cycle and compare it to where we stand today.
At this point in 2005, Republicans were dealing with nine open seats of an eventual total of twenty. Interestingly, only two of these nine were straight-up retirements, whereas the bulk of these early announcements were made by House members seeking a promotion to a statewide office. While the rumors and speculation are rampant, only five Republicans have announced retirements this year:
However, of these five, four are “straight-up” retirements, while the fifth (Duncan Hunter) may as well be, too. Additionally, retirements by Rick Renzi (AZ-01) and Ralph Regula (OH-16) seem all but official, and many are convinced that Dave Hobson (OH-07) will
throw in the towel, as well. I don’t expect that we’ll see too many Republican House members (if any) bothering to try their hand at statewide races next year, but I
do expect, with the shocking retirement announcements of Pryce and Pickering, that many more Republican members will test the winds during the August recess and make similar decisions (if not announcements) around Labor Day. I believe that this rings especially true when one considers that most the “true” retirements of 2006 (i.e. the desire to end one’s political career) came in the fall/winter of ’05 and ’06. And in a Presidential cycle, perhaps many potential retirees will feel obligated to give their would-be successors more of an opportunity to build their campaigns before the media cycle is utterly dominated by the top of the ticket.
So who’s next to grab a life preserver and bail?
an incumbent tries to (or does) pass his/her seat to his son?
2008: Hunter
2006: Bilirakis, Owens
2004: Lipinski, Tauzin
2002: Meek
2000: Clay (MO), Ewing (IL), Danner
1998: Gonzalez
But, i’m sure some son/daughter ran in 1996.
Hey, don’t forget Bobby Jindal in LA-01! He may be beatable, but you have to concede that he’s currently the “probable” victor for Goveror of Louisiana. Of course, LA-01 has a PVI of R+18.5, so it would pretty much take the second coming of Chet Edwards (or a GOP candidate worse than Bill Sali) to win this seat. But considering how close we got in WY-AL last year, you never know.
With Pryce and Hastert joining Delay in retirement, the old House leadership is leaving the building. It might be interesting to compare Republican retirements this cycle with Democratic retirements at the same point in 1993.
The two big days to mark on the calendar, are September 16th, and then September 30th. General Petrasus report and the 3rd quater’s last day. By then we’ll see whose in or whose out. Everyone knows, Regula, Renzi, Doolittle are possibly on their way out. But who would have saw Pryce? She raised a ton of money in the first half, and if the Republicans were in the majoirty do you think she really would have left?