The Republican Retirement Parade Is Getting Absurd

Another one bites the dust.

empty seats

The returning members of the House Republican caucus.r. nial bradshaw/Flickr

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Another Republican politician is packing up his bags and heading home. On Monday, New Jersey GOP Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, announced that he would retire in January, bring the total number of House Republicans who have resigned or intend to retire up to 23. (Another 11 Republicans are vacating their seats to run for either governor or Senate.) Frelinghuysen, the scion of one of America’s oldest (and least well-known) political dynasties, represents a Republican-leaning North Jersey seat that President Donald Trump won by less than one percentage point in 2016, and was a top Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee target going into this fall even before he stepped aside.

Some of those seats, such as Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s Miami-Dade district and Rep. Darrell Issa’s in Southern California, are top Democratic targets, but many—particularly in deep-red parts of Texas—are generally considered safe for Republicans. Every member has their own considerations, but the through-line is that Republicans in positions of power have concluded that in the next two years, their jobs are only going to get worse. Frelinghuysen is one of eight committee chairs who is leaving.

Although he has held his seat since 1995, Frelinghuysen appeared to have been caught off guard by the grassroots progressive opposition to Trump in his district. He was out-raised by two Democratic challengers in the third quarter of last year, and when he received an angry letter from a constituent last spring complaining about his inaccessibility, Frelinghuysen sent the letter to a board member of the bank where she worked. (The constituent left her job at the bank.) Around the same time, he told constituents during a tele-townhall “it would be nice for you to back off.”

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate