Congressional Mortality Has Consequences
The House isn't quite as old as the Senate, but even there, you get deaths
These tweets caught my attention today:
I’ve run some related posts on the demographics of the House and on some Representatives who have died. I will link to these at the bottom of this post.
But let’s do a list of those who have died - and think through some of the issues of mortality and politics.
Death roll call for the House of Representatives: 2020 - present
I’m not sure why Rubashkin is starting at 2020, but let me just go with it. I will include all deaths, not just the natural ones:
I will note that three of these are pancreatic cancer. They were all older, black politicians who died of the disease. That is something interesting to note.
One was COVID.
Three were unspecified, but really, when one is 88 or 87 years old when one dies… how much does one need to specify?
(But seriously, you should specify.)
From a personal point of view, I understand not wanting to share medical information with the public. They don’t have to do that. This information is aggregated for statistical analysis in general via the CDC.
I count 4 Republicans and 8 Democrats in the House who have died since 2020.
I understand why Rubashkin is not counting the traffic accident — because one could not anticipate an accident, but if one is over 85, or has a serious cancer diagnosis, one should be able to anticipate a high probability of death.
But, as I indicated with my post on Val Kilmer yesterday, many of these people are quite young to die. Dying at age 67 of COVID? Come on. How was Ron Wright to anticipate that?
As for Sylvester Turner — he was 70, but that wasn’t that old, either. He replaced Sheila Jackson Lee in a regular election after she died. I don’t know what he died from, though perhaps it was related to cancer he had previously been treated for.
A Momentary Embarrassment: We Have Special Elections, You Know
But let’s get real for a moment.
There is no indispensable Representative.
They’re all replaceable.
We have processes for replacing them if they leave office prematurely, in whatever way.
The last election for the House was November 2024, so the only relevant House deaths were those of Sylvester Turner (replacing Sheila Jackson Lee) and Raúl Grijalva. Both of them died in March. So there hasn’t been enough time for them to be replaced by special election.
But then, remember that Trump had selected various people in the House for appointments, which he had to drop at least one — from NY, Elise Stefanik.
The Hill, 9 April 2025: Stefanik returns to House GOP leadership and committees after UN nomination withdrawal
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) is getting a seat back at the House GOP leadership table and her spots back on House committees as she returns to the lower chamber after President Trump withdrew her nomination to be U.N. ambassador over concerns about the slim GOP majority.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is appointing Stefanik to be chairwoman of House Republican Leadership, according to a release from her office — a Speaker-appointed position that is outlined in the conference’s rules, but is often vacant.
Other House-originated appointees came from states where special elections would come in short order, as opposed to in NY where the governor (Democrat) was going to delay new elections as long as possible. That would have affected the partisan balance in Congress.
So the main issue is whether those who die do get replaced in an expedited manner.
Okay, and perhaps there may be a change of party when there’s a special election.
Down for the Count: Higher Incidence with Age
But the issue is not only mortality, but morbidity.
Don Norcross, mentioned in the original post, is only 66, but he had a medical emergency recently, missing the recent vote:
ABC 6 Action News, 8 Apr 2025: New Jersey Rep. Donald Norcross hospitalized after medical event in North Carolina
U.S. Rep. Donald Norcross, from South Jersey, is in the hospital after he suffered what his staff calls "an emergency medical event likely related to his gallbladder."
The Democrat's office said the Congressman was admitted Sunday in North Carolina and is in stable condition.
When the 66-year-old is medically cleared to fly, he will be transferred back home to Cooper University Health Care to complete his recovery.
The Republicans are barely in a majority in the House.
I understand the Democrats want to create as much friction as possible in the process. They need as many live bodies as possible.
Currently, there are 220 Republicans, 213 Democrats in the House. There are 2 vacant seats due to the deaths.
To get Republican legislation through, pretty much all the Republicans have to show up. They don’t have much margin for error or allowance for defection.
Age Distribution in the House
By Party
This is not very different from three years ago (the last time I made such a graph). The Republicans have strong Gen X representation, and the Democrats do have older Boomers in that 75-80-year-old bin.
But hey! They also have representation at the younger edge!
Here’s a geographic representation:
Different states have different numbers of representatives, as well as different partisan balances.
Right now, there are two vacancies in the House: one seat is in Texas, which had been Sheila Jackson Lee’s. Then Sylvester Turner filled it and died. I’m sure it will be filled by another Democrat when they hold a special election.
Which will be… whups, November 2025.
The other vacancy is in Arizona, which will have its special election in September 2025 after primaries in July.
So yes, perhaps it would have been well not to let the older-than-Boomers keep hanging on, forget about the Boomers themselves with increasing morbidity and mortality when you’ve got razor-thin margins to deal with in trying to deal with political tactics.
Then maybe… JUST MAYBE… you can get around to longer-term planning.
Spreadsheet
Related Posts
20 Jan 2025: Falls are Dangerous for Seniors: Nancy Pelosi and Pope Francis
25 Jan 2025: 2025 Update on Senate Demographics
20 Jul 2024: RIP, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee: An Update on Pancreatic Cancer Death Trends
Sep 2023: Politicians: Don't Tempt the Reaper
April 2022: All Men Must Die, But They Don't Have to Die in Office
May 2023: A Sampling of Political Mortality
Thanks for covering this again. I intend to write my congressman (GenX) to have him encourage pre-boomers and boomers to announce retirements before the 2026 primary cycle.