Here are some common perceptions involving the new 104th Congress. Which are TRUE and which are FALSE?
1. The 104th Congress saw a record number of new people elected.
2. The 104th Congress is younger in age and are "outsiders".
3. Term limits will be a priority of this new Congress.
Here are the post-election realities.
1. Of the 432 Representatives elected, only 87 (20%) were new. 345 (80%) had served before and were re-elected. Only 36 House incumbents were actually defeated; the other 51 were elected to seats with retiring representatives.
Of 35 Senators elected, 11 (31%) were new and 24 (69%) were re-elected.
Actually, in the 1992 election more "newcomers" were elected (a total of 124; 110 in the House and 14 in the Senate). What was newsworthy in 1994 is the fact that 73 of the 87 newly elected House Freshmen and and all 11 Senate Freshmen are Republicans.
2. The 104th Congress is actually be a bit "younger" than the 103rd, but not by much! The average age in the 103rd Congress was 52.9 years and in the 104th it will be 52.2. By contrast, the 98th Congress (in 1983) has an member average age of 47-years-old. Below is a age table of the 103rd & 104th Congress.
103rd House 103rd Senate 104th House 104th Senate
Republican 50.9 yrs 57.1 yrs 49.7 yrs 58.3 yrs
Democrat 52.6 59.2 yrs 52.1 yrs 58.5 yrs
Combined 52.9 yrs 52.2 yrs
The youngest House member is Democrat Patrick J. Kennedy from Rhode Island's District 1. He is 27 years old and is the son of Edward M. Kennedy and cousin of fellow representative Joseph P. Kennedy II of Massachusetts 8th District. The oldest House member is Sidney R. Yates, D-IL District 9, who is 85 years old.
In the Senate, the age range is from Rick Santorum (PA) at 36 years old to Strom Thurmond (SC) at 92 years old.
3. It is already clear that term limits are NOT likely be a priority with this Congress, and will probably only apply to those elected in the "future". Current members are too much in love with seniority to place limits on themselves. The number of terms served continues to rise and the current AVERAGE in both House and Senate has now increased from 5 to just over 6 terms.
John Dingel D-MI holds the current record with 21 consecutive terms. (Sidney Yates D-IL has served for 23 non-consecutive terms). Voters say they "don't want career politicians" but vote otherwise. They seem to feel that the longer a senator or representative is in office the more he or she can do for their home distict and re-elect them to another term. This trend has continued over the past 35 years with 65-70% of all incumbents re-elected, election after election.
The biggest "change over" took place in four states, each with six new faces. They are California, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Washington state. The overall size of the delegations vary, however, and it is interesting to note that Washington state really was serious about making a change!
Delegation Size New Members % Chg
California 54 6 11%
North Carolina 14 6 42%
Pennsylvania 23 6 26%
Washington 11 6 54%
This newly revised edition of QwikCONGRESS (104A) contains all the persons elected on November 8, 1994. Many of the Congress members have moved to new offices and all phone and fax numbers have been updated. Only a few items of information were still unavailable at release time (1/25/95), and these will be found in the next revision that is scheduled for publication 03/15/95.
As you look through this information you will probably be wondering "where is all the e-mail information?" Well, although the 103rd Congress had 45 members with e-mail addresses, only 19 of the 104th Congress members have listed e-mail addresses as of release time. Hmmm... does this mean that if you are techno-up-to-date that your re-election chances are diminished?
We are always interested in your suggestions as to how we can make QwikCONGRESS even more useful. Would you welcome additional monthly information updates (similar to the above)? These would be posted on AOL and CompuServe, but we need to learn of your interest and on which forums you would like them posted.
If you have download this copy of QwikCONGRESS from one of the online services, send for your registered version of QwikCONGRESS which has NO limitations and allows you to save changes, open new records, and retain your notes. Your registration will also enable us to inform you when each new revision of QwikCONGRESS is available. A convenient registration form can be printed from the Using QwikCONGRESS documentation file.
