Retirements, Retentions, and the Balance of Partisan Power in Contemporary Congressional Politics

Joining the Great Majority: An Analysis of Senate Deaths, 1919–2015*

“…() extended this analysis back to 1919. In the more modern study, they uncovered no evidence of any significant partisan differential in either full retirements from public life or among progressively ambitious senators (contrary to findings from Ang and Overby, for the House), nor did they find any significant ideological effects (contrary to Murakami, , for the House). Rather, full retirements were influenced positively by age, being up for reelection, length of service in the chamber, being an appointed (rather than elected) senator, and (counterintuitively for such an anti‐majoritarian institution) being in the minority, and negatively by prior legislative service; the only significant correlates to progressive ambition were tenure in the chamber (positively) and previous legislative experience (negatively).…”

“…15 In this regard, it is perhaps also worth noting that previous studies have found Republicans to be more successful than Democrats in retaining open seats in both chambers, suggesting greater coordination in terms of legislative careers. For the House, see Ang and Overby (2008); for the Senate, see Brant, Masthay, and Overby (2017). 16 The fact that we notice such differences across a time series of almost a century also supports Grossmann and Hopkins's claim that the differences between the parties are "enduring" (Grossmann and Hopkins, 2015:121). the composition and control of the Congress.…”

“…In their innovative study of vacancies on the Supreme Court, Zorn and van Winkle (), for instance, found that—even after controlling for age—deaths on the bench were significantly and negatively correlated with judicial output (as measured by total number of opinions justices had written in the preceding year), suggesting that less active, less engaged justices are more likely die with their proverbial robes on. More relevantly, recent studies have found, though not fully explored, that in both the modern House (Ang and Overby, ) and the modern Senate (Masthay and Overby, ) Democrats were more likely to die in office than Republicans. If there is, in fact, a significant and durable mortality differential between Republicans and Democrats that would be of interest since it could affect partisan control of the legislature.…”

“…In this regard, it is perhaps also worth noting that previous studies have found Republicans to be more successful than Democrats in retaining open seats in both chambers, suggesting greater coordination in terms of legislative careers. For the House, see Ang and Overby (); for the Senate, see Brant, Masthay, and Overby ().…”

Is Timing Everything? Retirement and Seat Maintenance in the U.S. House of Representatives

“…They argue that between 1954 and 1994, this led to Republicans being placed in the position of a “permanent minority” status in the House. Ang and Overby (2008) find that Republicans continue to retire from Congress at a higher rate than their Democratic colleagues, noting that this disparity attenuated the size of the Republican majority and contributed to their loss of the majority in the 2006 elections.…”