What's causing the congressional 'Texodus'?
By Mark P. Jones, Opinion Contributor — 10/03/19 07:30 AM EDT
The 23-member Texas Republican delegation is the largest state delegation in the U.S. House GOP caucus (Florida is second with 14). Six Texas Republicans have announced they will not seek re-election in 2020. They are Reps. Mike Conaway, Bill Flores, Will Hurd, Kenny Marchant, Pete Olson and Mac Thornberry.
There are multiple reasons for this “Texodous,†but three predominate: The high likelihood that the GOP will continue to be in the minority in 2021, GOP term-limits for committee chairs/ranking members and the need to campaign harder than before in order to win in 2020.
But while there is a tendency to view a retirement as having a negative impact on a party’s ability to retain a seat, not all of these retirements are bad news for Republican retention efforts.
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A first explanation is the near-universal belief that the Republican Party is not going to flip the U.S. House in 2020, and thus that Republican House members will once again find themselves in the minority during the 117th Congress (2021-23). The U.S. House is an extremely majoritarian institution, where the majority party calls the shots, and the power and influence of the minority party’s representatives is limited.
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https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/464101-whats-causing-the-congressional-texodus
