The news Monday night that Rep. Tom Rooney, R.-Fla., would not seek re-election this year was the latest in a trend toward a modern record of Republican U.S. Representatives leaving office in 2018.
Sources on Capitol Hill told Newsmax to expect at least “outta here” announcements from four more Republican House Members in the next few weeks.
At least one of the four expected to leave the House, the same sources told us, is enmeshed in personal and financial troubles likely to mushroom into a major scandal.
Coupled with the decision last week of Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., to leave his at-large House seat for a bid for the U.S. Senate, Rooney’s announcement already brings the number of Republicans retiring or resigning from the House or seeking another office to a post-World War II high of 36.
Four more departures by incumbent Republicans will bring that number to 40 — and no one on Capitol Hill has so far been able to come up with the year when many bid farewell to the House.
“It shouldn’t be that surprising,” former House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Livingston, R-La., told Newsmax, “You’re talking about people working on a job in which they haven’t had a pay raise in ten years. So several of the congressmen have to move on.”
Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institute, who has worked for four presidents, said that the common denominator of the Republican retirees could easily be “they are in a position that once commanded respect instantly and does not do that at all today — not by a longshot.”
In contrast to the 36-and-growing Republican retirees from the House, only sixteen Democrats are so far retiring, resigning or seeking another office.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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