Things are about to get very interesting in the House of Representatives.  While there have been a large number of representatives who are not running for re-election.  The irony of Republicans explaining their reason for leaving as the unpleasant environment in Congress is hard to miss.  But the focus of this post is not on those leaving in January 2025.  It is those who have left (involuntarily) or are about to be leaving mid-term.

At the present time, we have a vacancy in New York’s Third District due to the expulsion of fraudster who called himself George Santos.  (And the fact that the majority of House Republicans did not want to expel him despite overwhelming evidence of fraud while wanting to open an impeachment of President Biden with no evidence says something about the shell of a serious political party that the Republicans have become).  But we have also had announcements of the intent to resign in three other districts (so far) —   California’s Twentieth District (former Speaker Kevin McCarthy who will be leaving sometime later this month or in early January),  New York’s  Twenty-Sixth District (Democrat Brian Higgins who will be leaving in February), and Ohio’s  Sixth District (Republican Bill Johnson who will be leaving in March).

These departures in the House will alter the size of the Republican majority in the House.  The rules for vacancies in the House are different than the rules for vacancies in the Senate.  Under the Seventeenth Amendment, the governor of each state can temporarily fill a vacancy in the Senate until an election can be held to fill the balance of the term.  By contrast, there is no equivalent provision for the House.  Thus a House seat remains vacant until there is a special election.  For both the House and the Senate, the timing of the special election is left to the state.  Especially for the Senate, there is a wide range of rules with some states leaving the appointee in office until the next regularly scheduled election (which can create the weirdness of having two elections for the same office — one for the last three to four weeks of the current term and one for the next term — at the same time) and others requiring a prompt special election.  But the states also have different rules for the scheduling of House elections (and who chooses the candidates). Continue Reading...