110th Special Elections

[Mr.Phips]

So far we already have 3 special elections occurring for the 110th Congress and we still have a year and a half to go before the next real election.  If we continue at the current pace we'll be announcing the need for another special election nearly once every month.  With the current amount of scandals surrounding many representatives and the old ages of many members of Congress I think it is very likely that we could continue at our current pace due to resignations, early retirements, and deaths.  According to Wikipedia (which has some very large gaps in what I am sure is a highly inaccurate record)  the 101st (1989-1991) set the record for most special elections with 12.  Three of those resulted in a party change.  Does anyone else think that the 110th could be the one to break or tie the record?

Its possible.

[Mr.Phips]

After further investigation into the matter here is a breakdown of the causes for the 12 special elections held during the 101st Congess:  5 members left the House for new positions, 3 resigned amid scandals, 2 died of natural causes, and in some sort of strange unfortunate coincidence 2 congressmen died in separate plane crashes in the same week of August 1989.

Mickey Leland of Texas and Larkin Smith of Mississippi both died in plane crashes.

Of the three districts that switched parties, two went from Rep to Dem(MS-05, IN-04) and one went from Dem to Rep(FL-18).

[Mr.Phips]

None of the current open seats are in serious danger. The Democrats would stand a chance at Renzi's seat and LoBiondo's (which would easily be the most endangered seat up in a special election for a long time), and maybe at Doolittle's. Young is harder to say since Alaska is not particularly partisan.

LoBiondo's would be endangered due to the scandal and if a popular Dem like Van Drew or Whelan abandon their State Senate campaigns to run.

I think the Dems would definetley get Renzi's seat.

They would almost certainly get LoBiondo's without him running.