Rep.-elect Jennifer McClellan (D-VA) will be sworn in Tuesday evening after winning a special election in Virginia's 4th Congressional District last month, marking the first time since 2019 the House will have no vacancies.
McClellan is replacing the late Donald McEachin, who died of cancer after winning reelection in November. Barring deaths or sudden resignations, the 118th Congress should have all seats filled until Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) resigns in June to run the Rhode Island Foundation.
JENNIFER MCCLELLAN WINS DEMOCRATIC 'FIREHOUSE PRIMARY' TO REPLACE LATE REP. DON MCEACHIN
The last time the House had all 435 members was in 2019 for six days, between Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) being sworn in on Sept. 17 after winning a special election and former Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) resigning on Sept. 23 to care for his newborn baby with a heart defect. Before that, the House was at full capacity for a few weeks in January 2017 until Mike Pompeo (R-KS) resigned to become CIA director and eventually secretary of state under former President Donald Trump.
The House has vacant seats more often than not, an analysis by FiveThirtyEight found. The last three sessions have had at least one unfilled seat between 97% and 100% of the time. The 114th Congress, which ran from 2015 to 2017, was only full 11% of the time, and the session with the lowest vacancy rate in the last 20 years was the 108th Congress (2003 to 2005), which was full 52% of the time.
Several notable absences in the 117th Congress were caused by deaths of sitting members. Rep. Don Young (R-AK) died in March after serving nearly 50 years in Congress, while Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-IN) was killed in a car crash in August while traveling in her district. Other absences in the last year included Rep. Charlie Crist's (D-FL) August resignation to focus on his campaign for governor of Florida and Rep. Devin Nunes's (R-CA) resignation to run Trump's social media platform Truth Social.
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Since 2010, special elections to replace members who resign or die mid-term have taken longer due to the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act that Congress passed in 2009. The law mandates that ballots for all federal elections are sent to voters residing outside of the country 45 days in advance, which is often doubled since most races include a primary and a general election.
Between 2011 and 2021, House seats with an opposing-party governor remained unfilled for an average of 192 days, while absences in House seats with a same-party governor have lengthened to an average of 137 days, FiveThirtyEight found. Before 2011, a seat was usually only vacant for around 100 days.