Early Retirement
Two members of the Republican majority in Congress announced yesterday they would not seek re-election in 2024. Both had drawn attention in the past month for blocking the ascension of certain candidates for Speaker of the House.
The first is Colorado’s Ken Buck, who delivered the news in a sharply worded social media video, criticizing fellow conservatives for their belief that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
“It is impossible for the Republican Party to confront our problems and offer a course correction for the future while being obsessively fixated on retribution and vengeance for contrived injustices of the past,” Buck said. Buck was one of the eight Republicans who voted to remove Kevin McCarthy last month.
Buck leaves after five terms.
The other is the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, Kay Granger of Texas. You may recall Iowa’s Mariannette Miller-Meeks voted for Granger on one of the speaker ballots, and Granger herself voted to deny Jim Jordan the speaker’s gavel.
She will leave after this, her 14th term in office, saying it’s time to allow a new generation of leaders to have a chance.
Both of those folks also, no doubt, did not want to be on a 2024 general election ballot with Donald Trump…that’s why some, such as now-former presidential candidate Will Hurd of Texas, opted out before 2020.
Certainly something to watch…whether these open seats will stay red, and how many other incumbents will suddenly find they need to spend more time at home with their families.
