ICYMI: POLITICO: Retirements a downer for Democrats

“’Members of the House don’t focus on their own politics — they focus on whether they are going to be in the majority and can push an agenda,’ former Democratic Alabama Rep. Artur Davis told POLITICO. ‘There are very few Democrats who see the prospect of the House shifting.’

House Democrats are jumping ship — suggesting a growing concern within the party that winning back the majority in 2012 will be a difficult task.

Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank’s announcement Monday that he’s stepping aside after more than three decades in office makes him the latest in what is quickly becoming a long line of Democrats to say they will not seek reelection.

No one is writing off the possibility that Democrats will win back the House, but party officials say the political environment isn’t quite ripe for a takeover. And they say the prospect of a drawn-out stay in the minority gives members little incentive to wage expensive and hard-fought campaigns.

The Democratic retirements extend to the highest ranks of the party. Frank, the top Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, made his announcement just days after Texas Rep. Charles Gonzalez, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said he will not run again in 2012. Both are veterans: Frank, the iconic and outspoken liberal, has spent 16 terms in Congress; Gonzalez entered the House in 1999, assuming the seat his father, former Rep. Henry Gonzalez, had held since the early 1960s.

“Members of the House don’t focus on their own politics — they focus on whether they are going to be in the majority and can push an agenda,” former Democratic Alabama Rep. Artur Davis told POLITICO. “There are very few Democrats who see the prospect of the House shifting.”

He added: “I predict there will be five to 10 other senior Democrats that will announce their retirements in the coming months.”

The numbers are stark: Of the nine House members who are retiring and not seeking another office, all are Democrats. Another eight Democratic members are running for different offices entirely — deciding, apparently, that their political prospects are better served in venues other than the House minority. All seven retiring House Republicans are seeking other elected offices.

It’s a familiar trend: When parties lose the majority, the path back to power appears too steep for many members to stick it out. After Democrats lost the majority in 1994, 29 Democrats did not seek reelection — eight more than the number of Republicans who retired. After Republicans lost the majority in 2006, 27 Republicans did not seek reelection — 21 more than the number of retiring Democrats.

“Would I prefer to be in the majority?” former Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Dave Obey, the longtime Appropriations Committee chairman who retired in 2011, said just before a wave election handed Republicans the majority. “Yeah, because I’d rather get things done.”

Democrats, nervous that the climbing retirement total will slow the party’s momentum heading into the election year, are aggressively combating the idea that the exits indicate that a return to power is growing further out of reach.

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For some Democrats, calling it quits is more than just a judgment that winning back the majority isn’t worth the wait. This year, several outgoing lawmakers have pointed to the once-in-a-decade redistricting process and the political hardships it presents as a key culprit in their decision making.

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Other Democrats who have decided to forgo another term have expressed a lingering sense of isolation from party leaders who have sought to advance an ambitious and frequently politically driven agenda.

Of the nine Democrats who are retiring and not seeking another office in 2012, four conservative-minded party lawmakers voted for someone other than House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to serve as the Democratic leader following the 2010 midterms.

Perhaps no one has expressed disenchantment with the White House more forcefully than Cardoza. Upon his retirement last month, Carodoza, who represents a California district that has been hammered by the housing crisis, issued a scathing statement, saying he was “dismayed by the administration’s failure to understand and effectively address the current housing foreclosure crisis.”

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