Retirement fever hits Washington

By Bo Harmon, BIPAC vice president of political affairs

An outbreak of retirement fever has struck Washington. So far eight U.S. senators have announced retirement (though no more Senate retirements are expected). On the House side, there are 30 members who will not be running for their old seat and more are expected over the coming months. Of those 30, 16 are retiring and 14 are running for other office. Out of 435 seats, 30 retirements may not seem like a lot, but it is a matter of who is retiring that should be of concern to the business community.

The wave of retirements from centrist-oriented consensus builders started in 2012 and unfortunately continues this election cycle. 2012 saw Senate retirements from consensus builders such as Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), Ben Nelson (D-N.E.), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Jim Webb (D-Va.).

One of the most striking similarities of all the retirement announcements this year is that they come largely from members who were the most likely to seek compromise and reach across the aisle to get things done. In the Senate, Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) regularly sat on bi-partisan boards or study committees tasked with finding consensus on issues as varied as immigration, the budget, debt ceiling and entitlement reform. Similarly in the House, consensus-builders such as Jim Matheson (D-Utah), Mike McIntyre (D-N.C.), Jon Runyan (R-N.J.), Tom Latham (R-Iowa), Frank Wolf (R-Va.) and Jim Gerlach (R-Pa.) are all going to be missing from the chamber next year. Jo Bonner (R-Ala.), Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), Bill Owens (D-N.Y.), Howard Coble (R-N.C.), Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) and John Campbell (R-Calif.) were all consensus builders as well. None is running for other office; they are all just leaving Washington.

In an era of hyper partisanship and gridlock, these members were at the forefront of maintaining the civility and functionality of Congress. While every one of these members have individual reasons for retiring from Congress, one of the things heard most frequently in off-the-record conversations is that they are fed up with the inability of Congress to work together and the partisan gridlock that is so frustrating to Americans outside of the beltway as well. All in all, 2012 saw 10 Senate retirements and 25 House retirements (additional House members ran for other offices) and in almost every single case, the retiring member has been replaced by someone less likely to reach across the aisle – someone more partisan than the member who retired.

While campaign consultants and ideologues may cheer the decline of bipartisan cooperation, it is bad news for the business community, and we have seen the results. No formal budget for three years, constant threats to default on U.S. debt, wholesale abandonment of issues such as tax reform, immigration reform, patent reform, intellectual property protections, etc. It is the very people who left Congress in 2012 and are leaving at the end of 2014 that gave even a glimmer of hope to such things.

If the business community is willing to actively engage in primaries, we may end up with nominees from both parties who recognize that the need to protect a stable, predictable business climate as the key to economic growth and prosperity. If we sit on the sidelines, however, as tended to be the case in 2010 and 2012, we are likely to end up with replacements for these consensus builders and others with more partisanship and less cooperation. As with any business decision, you get the results you invest in. BIPAC (Business Industry Political Action Committee) offers you the tools, training and infrastructure to invest in good candidates. We want to be your partner in finding and electing strong pro-business, pro-prosperity candidates to office. The road of stagnant growth, low work force participation and an unstable economic climate is what is in store if we do not engage and support candidates with a willingness to work together, to compromise across party lines for the benefit of economic growth and jobs. Primaries are starting soon. Let's get to work.