Iowa is about to have an open Senate seat for the first time in twenty-nine years. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) decided to bolt from the U.S. Senate, as did Jay Rockefeller (D-WV). However, why are safe Democrats retiring from the U.S. Senate? Rockefeller and Harkin, for example, could’ve been there for life. Is it because Sen. Harry Reid is making things so miserable that stalwarts of the left, like Harkin, are crying “uncle”? The Washington Post‘s Jennifer Rubin thinks so, and said to watch for three more retirements as 2014 draws nearer.
Keep an eye on Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) and even Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).
Then, of course, John Kerry has decamped for Foggy Bottom and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) may find it hard to finish his term. These last two departures mean the Democrats’ margin gets much tighter and the opportunity to ram through progressive legislation diminishes even further.
Pols who come to Washington to “make a difference” — which for liberals means passing legislation — must find Reid’s Senate deadly dull. Rarely do votes get taken. There hasn’t been a budget in over three years. Reid is likely either to whittle down antigun legislation to the bare bones or block it entirely. The president looks anxious to scuttle immigration reform before it starts. In short, Democratic senators do very little. (How they get reelected doing so little is beyond me.)
At least Republicans see their mission as playing defense 24/7. Stay alert. Don’t let more damage be done. Think how to minimize the debt. It’s not grand, but it is challenging and invigorating in a way. Democrats, on the other hand, have to be content to do nothing.So it is a wonder more Democrats don’t leave. This year Virginia has a gubernatorial race that Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) could win in a heartbeat. In 2014 gubernatorial races abound. Democrats will be term-limited out in Massachusetts, Arkansas and Maryland. There will be competitive races against potentially vulnerable GOP incumbents in states such as Florida, Maine and Pennsylvania.
However, while Sen. Mark Warner would handily win the 2013 Virginia gubernatorial race, he has said he’s not interested in another terms as governor. As for Dick Durbin, he said back in 2012 that he may retire in “two years,” which leaves room for Republican Congressman Aaron Schock to possibly mount a run for the seat. Upon the announcement that Sen. Jim DeMint was leaving, WaPo’s Chris Cillizza noted that Carl Levin will be 80 in 2014, and “ended September with less than $300,000 in the bank. Of course, Levin was the subject of retirement rumors in 2008, ignored them and cruised to victory.” However, Cillizza added that the state’s party dynamics guarantee that Michigan will remain in Democratic hands.
However, this was a slow-moving snowball. When Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) retired citing the partisan gridlock, most shrugged it off. Then, Olympia Snowe (R-ME) decided to jump ship citing similar reasons. On a side note, it’s funny how moderates complain about partisanship, but then think leaving will solve the issue. However, this was during the time when unserious budget proposals were brought before the Senate floor, with Harry Reid blocking every Republican pro-economic bill that came his way.
Liberals need to do something to make themselves feel like they’re making a difference. However, with Reid clogging the spotlight all the time, it’s no wonder why the older guard is deciding to collect their congressional pension, and make a B line for the door.
Also read:
Not surprising. Harry Reid even looks like constipation.
Publisher of Blagojevich book under fire.
Chicago Review Press: Do they ignore the facts?
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2013/02/02/chicago-review-press-do-they-ignore-the-facts/
You’re right! I never thought of it that way, but he does!!!
Well, perhaps if the genuises gave less control to the Majority leader, who has no Constitutional role in legislation….
Hard to argue about “partisan gridlock” when you vote for, enable, and empower something called a “majority leader” who has more power than the Senate president or president pro tem. Physician, heal thyself.
Leaving aside for the moment the overt partisan nature of a Joe Biden, the simple fact is that by making a majority leader, the Senate has elevated the idea of party supremacy over the idea of equality of representatives of the states to debate and deliberate. If they then have partisan gridlock, it is no body else’s fault but their own.
Last I heard the Democratic senators elected Reid as its leader.
“Democratic senators do very little.”
Even so, I wish they would do less, because when they do pass a law, it’s usually a bad one. (Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, …)
I’d like to hear a whole lot less crowing about how the “Democrats this” and the “Democrats that” . It is obvious to anybody who pays attention, that no matter what demographics or “power blocs” are supposed to say, that the Democrat Party has crafted a juggernaut hell bent on destroying America.
And they’ll succeed too.
There is no ‘organized’ opposition to them, and they control enough of the court system and culture to steamroll anything that tries to form.
Complacent , so-called citizens have let themselves be bought with goodies.
The only question now, is how long before the entire crooked edifice goes in a blazing pillar of flame.
It is far more likely to slowly rot and collapse of its own weight than to go in a “blazing pillar of fire”. That’s the trend and, as you say, that is where the momentum is.
All for our own good, of course.
Dave,
I hear what you say.
However, Eric Loomis and Donald Kaul are not going to rest until they get that Pillar of Flame. Many others in and out of the spotlight seem to have decided that “now” is the time to move. With both the Media and the culture totally owned by tyrants or wanna-be tyrants, resistance looks more and more futile.
I am not saying it IS futile, just that it sure looks that way to many.
The next 12 months or so, will decide the future of the US for the rest of the century.
Jen, Jen, Jen. Them doing so little is the best-case scenario. It may even be why voters left them in the majority last November.
Remember, no one’s money or property are safe when Congress is in session — but when it’s a do-nothing Congress, they’re in less danger than otherwise.
It’s called a “bee-line.”
Lordy.
I don’t think this has so much to do with Reid and the Democrat caucus’ failures as it does with the eminent failure of the US economy. These old-timers were starting their professional careers and moved into politics just after LBJ’s “Great Society” programs which can now only be supported by high deficients and debts to a communist country. Typical of liberals just wanting to make life more fair for the down-trodden, these programs made things worse, not better for these poor souls, in fact enslaved most, and the programs are now just jobs for public sector union members. These Democrat senators just don’t want to be around when the Great Society (Socialism) becomes the huge failure may conservatives and Capitalists predicted.
Indeed; after all the anti-coal stuff he’s directly or indirectly supported, I can see how Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) could be considered to have a seat for life. The economy is traditionally tough enough in WV without the EPA et. al. plus Obamanomics making things more difficult.
I agree with your analysis. The “old timers” served during an era of big spending. It is easy to be a legislator when you get to hand out the money to constituents. But now the era of borrow-and-spend is over. Things have to change. The old timers can’t handle that so they ride off into the sunset. Time for new blood to take over and handle the new challenges of our time.
Walter Russell Mead has posted articles on what he calls the end of the “Blue Model” of governance and what comes next. Although I don’t necessarily think Mead has a handle on the answer to what comes next, at least he is asking the right questions. Guys like Harkin and Rockefeller aren’t. That is why they are the past, not the future.
Actually, it’s called a “beeline.”
Joe Lives!
Why do the Democrats continue to make Harry Reid their leader?
The job pays well (even if mostly on the side), there’s no heavy lifting, and few of the incumbents have any other skills, so why would they leave? Where would they go? Don’t they know what the job market is like out there?
They can go home, live on their federal pensions, write a non-selling book, make a few bucks giving speeches, get an honorary degree and teach at the local junior college, and in five years be entirely forgotten. It’s not a bad retirement, but it’s not like having power, people lined up outside your door 24×7 to plead with you and offer you bribes.
If 80yo Senators finally decide to go home, it’s not much on Harry Reid.
As the Hotel California legislature became 20+ years ago, the national Congress already *is* an asylum and rest home, you can never really leave.
Josh, California voters imposed term limits on their legislature more than “20+” years ago.
Well, that’s irony for ya, every replacement seems worse.
Maybe the Aztecs had it right – one year on top, then buh-bye.
Snowe, durbin, schumer, and Kerry wont be missed. Hope Reid and Pelosi join them very soon in the ranks of retired members of congress. ONly bad part is that they get pensions.
Carl Levin is a shoo-in to retire: he’s a co-sponsor of Feinstein’s AWB bill. There is no way a Senator from MI is going to sign on that poisoned pill…UNLESS he knows he won’t have to stand for re-election.
YMMV.
As long as the GOP avoids Akins and Mourdochs, I have to believe they’ll pick up several of those seats.
Keep it TEA party, not Islamists with crosses party.
And before you complain that’s too harsh, I’m here to tell you that’s exactly the level of stupid Akin’s rape idea was–Taliban, level blowing up Buddhas, dry county, no-dancing allowed vile and stupid.
Other than the Johnson seat in SD, Democrats will probably hold most of these seats mentioned. The states they represent count on federal largesse, of one form or another. Don’t count on the GOP winning in NJ, even if Menendez is forced out. We used to split our Senate seats – one Democrat and one Republican, but it’s been decades since we’ve had a Republican senator.
Death from old age is the only way Carl Levin will leave the US senate. The low info voters of Michigan will send this waste of skin until death stops them.Carl Levin really hates the state he he represents.
Maybe they’re leaving just because they don’t want to be around when everything crashes, which is a real possibility.
Bingo, you are spot on, they know what’s coming and are jumping ship.
The GOP consistently fails to put the blame on Reid the master of obstruction, all he does is table bills, go to the microphone and blast the GOP who sit and take it, they have no fight in them. The Left never stops, never…
I doubt even our brilliant founders could have foreseen such a sorry bunch of elected-for-life losers as we have in the US Senate. Most senators have been in DC so long that they are far more loyal to that sewer than they are to their home states. They are joined at the hip with the megagovernment and only pretend to care about the country at large. Just look at how few of them return to their “home” state when they retire or, miraculously, get defeated in an election.
– flying circus.
There are MAYBE five of those Senatorial bums whose hand I’d consider shaking. The rest of them I would greatly love to give the rough edge of my tongue. The U.S. Senate, as an elected body, is absolutely and completely worthless, and the Scumbag from Searchlight, Dingy Harry, is the worst of the lot.
It’s no surprise that the worst WH inhabitant in history came from the Senate. It’s what a logical person would expect.
I wouldn’t say Harry Reid is the worst, Feinstein probably takes that title easily. At least Reid has a respectable rating from the NRA and there’s a decent chance he’ll quietly scuttle Obama’s anti-gun legislation rather than risk his own skin. If the Republicans have to filibuster some gun bill the media gets to paint them as the obstructionists, but if the Dems can’t even find enough members in their own caucus willing to take the suicide plunge for the cause, they can’t do much except gnash their teeth. I don’t think Reid is as retarded as Obama, he knows a gun bill will cost a lot of Dems their seats, and right now that’s a good thing.
CA has little to worry about losing DiFe or Babs (Call me Senator) Bouncer -
this is the best, and last, job evah for these two who would have nowhere to go if they left.
It’s our (CA’s) curse.