Two longtime Democrats, Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-CA) and Rep. Jim Langevin (D-RI), announced they would not seek reelection for another term in Congress, becoming the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth Democrats to leave the House, putting their party’s chances of keeping the majority in greater peril.
McNerney, becoming the twenty-seventh Democrat to announce retirement, said in a series of tweets, “Today I am announcing that I will not seek reelection in California’s newly created 9th Congressional District.”
The congressman stated that he was “honored” that he was able to represent California’s nineteenth Congressional District through five terms and California’s eleventh Congressional District for three terms.
Langevin, becoming the twenty-eighth Democrat to announce retirement, said in an op-ed published in the Providence Journal that “After serving the people of Rhode Island for over 3 decades – including 11 terms and nearly 22 years in Congress — today, I am announcing that I will not be a candidate for elected office this November.” Langevin added:
I am so proud of all that we have been able to accomplish together. I worked tirelessly to protect and advance the rights of Americans with disabilities, and I’ve worked across the aisle to invest in job training, apprenticeships, and career and technical education.
In the current Congress, both retiring Democrats have been close confidants of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., and both have helped pass partisan agenda items. McNerney and Langevin have voted with Pelosi 100 percent of the time, according to ProPublica.
Some of those partisan votes include the $1.2 trillion, 2,702-page so-called bipartisan infrastructure bill earlier this year — which Biden already signed into law — and the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better Act (BBB) — also known as the Democrats’ reconciliation infrastructure bill.
More recently, the House also passed the two “freedom to cheat” voter bills — the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act — which would cripple Republican attempts across the country to increase election integrity.
While these two become the most recent Democrats to announce they will not seek reelection in the House, they are only the nineteenth and twentieth to announce actual retirement from the public eye — including three committee chairs — while eight more Democrats announced they would run for a different office, either in a local or state election.
There have also been rumors of more Democrats abandoning ship in the coming weeks and months leading up to the midterms, as more redistricting maps are accepted and deadlines to file for reelection are getting closer.
“Democrats have a tough choice: retire now, or stick around and get fired,” said Congressional Leadership Fund Communications Director Calvin Moore. “With failed records on every front, it’s no surprise Democrats are flooding the exits.”
However, McNerney’s retirement opened the door for Rep. Josh Harder (D-CA), who can now run in the retiring Democrat’s district. In a statement shortly after McNerney’s retirement announcement, Harder stated that he would be run in the now vacant district:
Jerry, thank you for your incredible service to our community… Today, I’m humbled to share I will be running for reelection in CA-9 which encompasses parts of mine and Jerry’s districts. More than 150 years ago, my great-great-grandpa joined a wagon train to California and settled in Manteca to start a peach farm and raise his family.
Harder’s announcement means he will be leaving California’s Thirteenth Congressional District for the ninth, which is much safer for a Democrat after the once-in-a-decade redistricting process significantly changed Harder’s original district.
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter.
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