Threats, dysfunction and flying: Why quitting is all the rage in DC
- - Threats, dysfunction and flying: Why quitting is all the rage in DC
Zachary Schermele, USA TODAYDecember 6, 2025 at 5:04 AM
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WASHINGTON – When Dick Durbin retires from Congress, there's one thing he won't miss: flying.
The Democrat has been making the trek from the nation's capital to his home state of Illinois since 1982, when he was first elected to the House of Representatives. After serving seven terms in that chamber, he has spent five more in the Senate, eventually rising through the ranks to hold some of the top leadership positions in the legislative body.
After four decades, he's leaving Washington next year. And he's not the only one.
More: 'Keep your mouth shut.’ Tempers flare over shutdown with no end in sight
More than 50 lawmakers like Durbin are also not planning to run for reelection to their current seats, according to data from Ballotpedia, National Public Radio and Axios. The bulk of that growing tally comes from the House of Representatives, where over 40 representatives have signaled their intention to leave the chamber.
While that's not an unusual occurrence – there are hundreds of voting members in the U.S. Capitol, and departures for one reason or another "happen regularly," Durbin said – the rapid pace of the exits, particularly in the House, has hit a record high compared to similar points in recent years.
U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) visits a protester aid station outside of the Broadview ICE facility, in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., October 10, 2025.
The exodus comes at a tough time for Congress as an institution. If the longest-ever government shutdown was any indication, political gridlock is at a high point. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are increasingly worried about their own safety, especially in the wake of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Widespread redistricting efforts have upended lawmakers' understandings of the places they represent.
More: What's next after Supreme Court approves pro-Trump Texas map for 2026?
And despite having passed major domestic policy legislation earlier this year, there's intensifying bipartisan frustration at the White House over its efforts to wrestle spending powers away from the legislative branch.
Some members of Congress just don't feel like it's worth it anymore.
"Simply put, what I could accomplish in this increasingly unproductive Congress pales in comparison to what I could do in that time as a husband, a father and a son," said Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, in an announcement last month that he wouldn't seek reelection.
A 'toxic' environment
Then-House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul delivers his opening statement prior to the testimony of Fmr. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley in March 2024.
Like Durbin, Rep. Michael McCaul has served a decadeslong career in Congress. The Texas Republican has held powerful positions as chairman of the House committees on both foreign affairs and homeland security. He announced in September that he wouldn't run again.
"For me, it was a natural time," he told USA TODAY. "I'm still young enough to have a second career."
In the years since McCaul first came to Capitol Hill from Austin in 2005, he said the environment has become more "toxic" than ever. He watched with fascination at what he called the "reincarnation" of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican who for years was a defining component of President Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" brand.
Read more: How Marjorie Taylor Greene took on Trump and stayed true to her base
Greene, who has since fallen out of favor with the president, shocked the political world in November when she said she'd fully quit her job in Congress come January.
"A hot bed of threats against me are being fueled and egged on by the most powerful man in the world," Greene said in her resignation announcement. She lamented the state of politics in general, saying "no matter which way the political pendulum swings, Republican or Democrat, nothing ever gets better for the common American man or woman."
U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) gestures, on the first day of the 119th Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S.,January 3, 2025.
McCaul sympathized with Greene's argument that the tone of today's politics has taken a turn for the worst. Primaries are getting bloodier, he said. The congressional statesmen he looked up to early on in his career are gone.
"We're all saying how we're Christian, men and women of God, but the rhetoric is not godlike at all," he said. "The environment's so toxic. I hope we can get it back. But I don't know."
Congress' waning influence
Stoplights change in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, on June 30, 2025.
The erosion of longstanding norms in Washington during the second Trump administration isn't helping matters.
While Congress has the power of the purse, tasking lawmakers with the authority to decide where and how the federal government spends its money, the White House has stretched its role in the process. Over the past year, federal agencies have repeatedly delayed and cut funding for programs in ways that lawmakers, judges and independent watchdogs have suggested were illegal.
More: Dismantling agencies and firing workers: How Trump is redefining relations with Congress and courts
Reasserting Congress' role in the budgeting process was a key sticking point in the recent historic government shutdown. Yet during the record-breaking funding crisis, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, kept members of the lower chamber away from Washington for an unusually long period of time.
For nearly two months, all was quiet in the House of Representatives. No votes, hearings or swearings-in for newcomers took place. Members like Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-California, grew more exasperated as the recess dragged on.
"There is a lot of frustration among our members with the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of the House," Kiley told USA TODAY. "If you're someone who ran for Congress to accomplish X, Y or Z, and it's becoming more difficult to do those things, does that impact people's decisions to stay? I'm sure it will."
One major piece of legislation did, however, make it across the finish line this fall – in large part due to defiant lawmakers in the House. The Epstein Files Transparency Act, which will force the Department of Justice to publicly release all legally available information about its investigations into Jeffrey Epstein later this month, passed Congress and was signed into law by the president just before Thanksgiving.
Trump, who used to be friends with the late disgraced financier and accused sex trafficker, initially opposed the legislation, saying it didn't fully protect victims' privacy rights. But after a critical mass of lawmakers, conservative and liberal, banded together to support the law, the president changed his mind.
For Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, one of the authors of the legislation, it was a hopeful sign in a grim environment. Even as friends of his (like Greene) head for the doors, he told USA TODAY the Epstein files vote proved that Congress can "still get things done."
"One of the reasons people are leaving is that it's demoralizing to be a rubber stamp," he said. "But I think we're breaking that."
Zachary Schermele is a congressional reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at [email protected]. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and Bluesky at @zachschermele.bsky.social.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why are lawmakers leaving Congress? Threats, dysfunction, flying, more
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