A day after the Florida's Ileana Ros-Lehtinen became the seventh Republican U.S. Representative to announce retirement or pursuit of another office in 2018, the White House told Newsmax on Monday it was unconcerned with the growing number of Republicans who exiting the House next year.
"I don't think that there's any belief that you have to stay here for 20, 30, 40 or 50 years," said White House press secretary Sean Spicer, who noted Ros-Lehtinen had served in the House for 28 years.
"And so she's just decided it's time to retire," he said.
The president's top spokesman added he felt, along with veteran lawmakers such as Ros-Lehtinen who decide they have served long enough, there are junior members such as Utah's Rep. Jason Chaffetz who decide they want to do something else with their careers.
A week ago, Chaffetz announced he was retiring from Congress and was likely to resign before his term ends in 2018.
"There's always going to be churn between election cycles between members in both parties who decide, for a number of reasons, to go back home," Spicer told us. "And I think that's a healthy part of the democracy, and that's, frankly, something that our framers saw. And it's a citizen legislature, so to some degree, that's a healthy part of it. But we feel very confident about where we stand."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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