Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). Former Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-NC). Reps. Ken Buck (R-CO) and Kay Granger (R-TX). Even Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV).
Record numbers of lawmakers are ditching Congress this cycle. For some, like Manchin and Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN), it is to run for higher office. That’s normal. For others, like McCarthy and McHenry, it's to cash in on K Street. Less admirable but normal.
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But then you have former California Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney, who announced he wasn’t running for reelection last cycle and is now in just his first year of retirement. Except he’s not staying retired. McNerney announced last week he is running for … the state Senate in California.
Why would a congressman with more than a dozen years of experience in a safe seat he just won by more than 15 points retire from Congress just to run for a state Senate seat?
It makes no sense.
It’s not like he can just walk into the seat either. Democratic Assemblyman Carlos Villapudua has already announced he intends to run for the seat too, which is going to be vacant next year thanks to the retirement of Democratic state Sen. Susan Eggman. Villapudua’s staff is already attacking McNerney.
“I look forward to a campaign where we compare [McNerney’s] record as a backbencher who collected a paycheck while getting nothing done in Congress to Assemblymember Villapudua’s laundry list of accomplishments in the state Assembly,” Villapudua consultant Lee Neves told Politico.
McNerney says he is getting back into politics because he sees “a great opportunity to get really good work done in California.” And maybe that is your answer right there. With the Senate and House now controlled by different parties, maybe McNerney got tired of partisan gridlock in Washington, D.C., and wanted to work in Sacramento where Republicans are powerless and Democrats have run everything for decades.
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But as strong as the Democrats are in California, McNerney would still be just 1 of 40 state senators. He’s a pretty generic California Democrat with standard positions on all the issues he says he cares about: climate change, gun control, and healthcare. It’s not like he is going to move the party in any new direction.
People choosing to leave politics doesn’t worry me. It’s probably the healthy choice. What does worry me is when people leave Congress to take lesser offices back home. It suggests Congress has become a lot less prestigious than it used to be, which may sound nice at first, but it should make you worry about the type of people it is attracting.