In federal politics, seniority is power. The top committees and most coveted positions aren’t assigned via merit, but longevity. If you want to be a bigshot in congress, all you’ve gotta do is keep on getting reelected and avoid the Grim Reaper.
The first hurdle is easy to cross: in 2024, 97% of congressional incumbents who ran for reelection were winners. With all the perks of incumbency, it’s practically a slam-dunk.
The second hurdle? Not so much.
Three days ago, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) died of cancer at age 75. He was the third congressman to die in office since Jan. 2025.
All three were Democrats.
Since April of 2024, six congressmen have died in office. All six were Democrats. In fact, if you go all the way back to 2022, the last EIGHT congressmen who died in office were all Democrats.
We’re being ruled by old dudes. And old dudes will die on you:
Congress isn’t getting any younger.
In fact, compared with the previous session, it’s 79 days older, and the third oldest in U.S. history.
With an average member age of 58.9 years old, the 119th Congress is the third oldest since 1789, according to an NBC News analysis of congressional membership and birth-date data.
In all probability, the next legislator who’ll die in office will also be a Democrat: even after all those other deaths, 11 out of the 14 House members who are over the age of 80 are still Democrats!
It’s the Bidenization of the Democratic Party. And it’s a big reason why MAGA has run roughshod over the Donkeys:
In a Congress where Republicans have only a thin hold on power, every vote counts. On Thursday, Congress passed the reconciliation bill by a vote of 215–214, with two Republicans breaking rank. As Branko Marcetic of Jacobin points out, “Three Democrats who would’ve made the losing vote 214-217 died in office this year. So basically, the budget Democrats have warned non-stop is a disaster will pass directly because of their insistence they stay in Congress until death.”
Politico hinted that the Dems’ doting on dinosaurs has put them at a competitive disadvantage in Congress:
[E]ven after the ouster of three 70-somethings from ranking spots on committees — Reps. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), David Scott (D-Ga.) and Nadler — top Democrats on 10 different committees in the next Congress will be over 70 years old. Two of them are octogenarians, including 86-year-old Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who will be ranking member on the House Financial Services Committee.
The GOP House chairmen these Democrats will be up against aren’t exactly spring chickens. But Republicans will have half the number of 70-plus-year-olds serving in the top spot. Two GOP chairmen will be more than 25 years younger than their Democratic counterpart on the committee. In part, it’s a function of the term limits imposed on committee leaders by the House GOP conference. Democrats, by contrast, are wedded to seniority as the basis of power. [emphasis added]
It’s not limited to the House of Representatives, either. In the Senate, only three of the 15 oldest senators are Republicans (Sen. Chuck Grassley, Sen. Mitch McConnell, and Sen. Jim Risch).
All the rest are liberals, including such entrenched D.C. powerbrokers as Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Patty Murray, Richard Blumenthal, and Dick Durbin. (Poor Chuck Schumer, at age 75, barely missed the cut, finishing as the 16th oldest senator.) The Dems’ power base and braintrust are geriatric.
Even far-left publications such as The Nation have had enough of these Metamucil-munching elders who NEVER leave the stage:
Lacking a cohesive party ideology, each Democratic lawmaker is in effect a warlord ruling over a small fiefdom. For warlords, the game is to hold power over the fiefdom until you die. If the Democrats had some larger vision of the social good, then one could expect politicians to sacrifice their career for that goal. Sadly, the only common vision seems to be careerism. [emphasis added]
We’re only five weeks away from the debut of the next “Jurassic Park” movie. Watching dinosaurs on the silver screen would be a welcome departure from the lumbering, overaged dinosaurs that keep collapsing in D.C. — especially if you’re a liberal.
KABOOM!! The MAGA comet was an extinction event. One by one, the dinosaurs are dying off.
The Bidenization of the Democratic Party is now underway.
Long live the mammals!
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