When does the mass retirement of Democrats start? I guess they can’t give up the socialist power. It seems like it’s always Republicans retiring lately.
Democrats do have a lot more older members of Congress than Republicans. I think Democrats have 26 over 70 to Republicans’ 15 over 70 in Congress. Democrats have I think 84 to Republicans’ 52 in Congress between the ages of 60 and 69. Democrats should have more retiring from Congress than Republicans in the coming years. In the Senate though Republicans and Democrats I believe are even in the 60 to 69 demographic but Republicans have 15 over 70 to Democrats’ 10. A few more Republicans are likely to retire from the Senate than Democrats in the coming years. Both houses are graying more than in the past, with the average age of members creeping up. We could probably do without so many senile old farts. These Senators often run for new six year terms when they are already in their mid seventies or older. It’s getting so expensive to run campaigns these days there is a lot of pressure on these guys to stay in longer and longer so we can have incumbents in office that are tough to beat. We’ll probably see more and more dying in office or having to get out because they get Alzheimer's disease or other serious age related maladies.
It's no fun going from the majority party to the minority party, and there were a lot of Democrat retirements after the '94 election. If anything it's an indication that a lot of GOP members don't expect to return to the majority any time soon.
Yes. Whenever a party loses power, a lot of older representatives who got comfortable with the power of the majority find they don’t like being in the minority and not having people cater to their every whim and send them expensive gifts and bribes or even inviting them to the best box seats at the football games.
So they quit.
A lot of democrats quit the senate after they lost power, and the house (not as many in the house because so many of them lost election).
Now it’s the republican’s turn, and for the most part it’s great, we get new blood, and maybe a fresh start.