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Paul Kane
Senior Congress Correspondent and Columnist
The House is experiencing one of the biggest power upheavals since the Republican Revolution of 1994, regardless of the winner of the mid-term elections next month.
After capturing the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years, the Republicans literally had no one in 1995 who served the majority and had to learn on the fly, which led to serious problems.
"We did not know where the keys were," recalls Tom Davis, the retired Virginia Republican who won his first home race that year.
In January, a lot of people will search the Capitol to find these keys.
More than 70 deputies who took the oath in January 2017 have already resigned from office, have decided not to run again, are lost in the primaries or are running for another position. Add 30 incumbents to the House vying for reelection, and it could potentially be from a historically large freshman class.
Brain drain is particularly acute in House committees, where eight GOP chairs have decided to retire and another hand the mallet because of the limited mandate.
If Democrats win the majority, their group of likely Presidents has a lot of experience at Capitol Hill, but very little in terms of hammer handling.
Only three of the 21 Democrats in the rankings have already chaired a committee.
And, of course, there will be a new Speaker of the House, the current occupant, Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), Part of the people who will be retiring.
If Republicans Retain Control and Raise Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), In his 12-year-old position, he would connect Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) To the position of Speaker of the House of Commons. experienced for nearly 100 years. If Democrats won, minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) Would return to her former job and be an exception to the trend.
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However, 78-year-old Pelosi faces internal opposition from Democrats demanding a generational power shift – and most of those mentioned as possible rivals as speakers have even less experience than McCarthy.
Given the national political tumult of the last decade, the House of the People reflects this climate.
The electoral waves that benefited the Democrats in 2006 and 2008 were followed by massive gains by the GOP in 2010 and 2014, caught between a large number of retirements in 2012 after redistricting prompted many incumbents to start on bail.
Legislators who appeared to be staff members a few years ago are now seasoned veterans who climb the ranks of influential committees.
In January 2011, Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) Arrived as a 32-year-old baby, part of the GOP freshmen class, who overturned control of the House.
Less than eight years later, Kinzinger is No. 217 in seniority, just in the top half of an entirely constituted House of 435 members. He is currently 15th in the House Foreign Affairs Committee and could be in the top 10 next year, depending on how the elections are run.
Some legislators are heading for a great cultural shock if Democrats win the majority.
Only a third of the 235 Republicans have served in the minority and only a little over half of the Democrats have served in the majority.
Davis knows from experience how hard adjustment can be. He first saw the faces of the Democrats in 1995, then experienced it himself when the Democrats won the majority.
"Recovery is hell," he said.
After this epic 1994 election, Davis noted that there would be more Democrats in the House next year than Republicans. Representatives Walter B. Jones (CR) and Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) will be the only revolutionaries to have transferred Newt Gingrich (RC) to the speaker's office 24 years ago.
Nearly half of the Republican class of 2010 – originally 85 people – left the House.
Pelosi said his first item on the agenda would be to introduce a bill to reorganize the campaign financing system, followed by bills dealing with the cost of prescription drugs, gun control fire and immigration.
The political future of McCarthy and Pelosi could depend on their state of origin, California
Democrats in Washington have put forward some political ideas under the "Better Deal" banner. Their candidates, however, ran their races largely on their own personal experiences, thus standing out from Pelosi and the Democratic leadership.
Many are first-time candidates with an impressive career in the military or as prosecutors. "They will not want to take the lead," predicted Davis.
In 1995, Gingrich focused the first 100 days of the new majority on trying to enact the "Contract with America" legislation, the campaign platform that the Republicans had adopted the previous year.
Although most of the "contract" never reached the Senate, it at least attracted Republicans' attention to what they had to do.
In 2007, Pelosi took a similar step after approval by newly elected House Democrats from their "Six for the 06" program, a series of issues that focused their first weeks of the majority.
Now, neither side has such a clearly defined program.
One certainty is that anyone who claims the speaker's jersey – Pelosi, McCarthy or one of their most inexperienced colleagues – will be put under the spotlight and will be given greater political significance.
Pelosi was there in 2007, the first woman to serve as a speaker, and remained relatively unscathed for the first three years. In 2010, Republicans turned it into a political cartoon of a San Francisco Liberal, a campaign they're trying to repeat now before the mid-term.
Gingrich suffered even more. A rhetorical bomb thrower when he was a minority, the Georgian Republican was struggling to stay focused and often found his statements generating controversy on the political front and consternation within the Republican ranks.
After four years, his Republican compatriots attacked him and forced him to speak.
The lesson continues to this day, for the next speaker and for anyone who will become the new chair of the committee.
"Suddenly, people took seriously what he said," Davis said.
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