The House Press Gallery has a nice fact sheet on the incoming 113th House. Lots of fun facts, some of which I knew (78 women, 59D/19R, not counting 3 delegates, all Democrats), and some of which I didn't (9 Asian Americans -- all Democrats, not counting two Democratic delegates). And one total shocker, at least to those of us who remember 1995.
Also worth noting...
7 of the 47 new Democratic Members are also old Democratic Members. Seems like a pretty experienced frosh class. Only one of the 35 new Republicans has been in the House before -- Steve Stockman of Texas.
27 incumbents were defeated in 2012, 20 in general elections (well, really, 20 by opposite party opponents; the one in Louisiana was a same-party general election runoff).
I'm really interested in the seniority stuff. First of all, I didn't realize that Ileana Ros-Lehtinen was now dean of Hispanic Members; she entered the House in August 1989. More generally, and looking only at continuous service:
Five Members served while Richard Nixon was president. There are two remaining Watergate babies, George Miller and Henry Waxman.
21 Members served with Tip O'Neill.
46 served while George H.W. Bush was president. 23 entered in January 1993.
Add two more soon after that, and only 71 remember what it was like when Democrats always had the majority.
Only 12 remain from Newt's revolution class of 1995. And of those 12, only 7 are Republicans -- the 7/5 R/D ratio of remaining Members from that class has to be the craziest statistic of the incoming Congress.
122 served when Bill Clinton was president.
Over half of the House was not there (again, continuously) in 2006; only 202 of them served during the GOP majority that ended that year.
Only 233 Members of the 113th House served when George W. Bush was president -- 201 (there's one vacancy) Members have only (continuously at least) served while Barack Obama was president.
That's all for now; make of all this what you will. I'm still digesting that 104th Congress shocker. Nice job, Newt!
Note that Rep. Scott (SC) resigned effective today, 1/2. So there are two vacancies now, and several statistical adjustments to the HPG data.
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Spoilsport.
ReplyDeleteBut thanks.
Not to mention Dingell (Ike) and Conyers (LBJ)!
ReplyDeleteI won't go into specifics to protect his privacy, but I just realized that my new congressman lives at the intersection of two streets with the same names as my two senators. Kind of blew my mind when I realized it.
ReplyDeleteYeah that stuff about the class of 1995 is pretty cool. Personally I'm pretty surprised about the overall turn over, with half of members having being elected in the past six years! Anyone who complains about people "going to Washington" and being changed or corrupted needs to look at this web page over and over again for a few days. If you think the House is dysfunctional and aren't willing to call one of the parties dysfunctional you pretty much need to acknowledge that our system of electing candidates in primaries and then general elections somehow produces highly dysfunctional House members. We've gotten plenty of "new blood" and "outsiders" as far as I can see. Also only nine of the 234 GOP House members are minorities? That's amazing.
ReplyDeleteWhere did Berman end up in your count? Because that was, effectively, another same-party general election runoff.
ReplyDeleteI agree, it's utterly amazing more of Newt's Republican Revolutionaries aren't around to tell those tales. 1995 wasn't that long ago, even (especially?) on the Congressional-geological time scale.
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