10 familiar faces bidding farewell to Capitol

With the 113th Congress is slated to end this week, so will the careers of many lawmakers bidding farewell to the institution.

Some of the departing members have only served for as little as a term in Congress. Others will leave behind decades of experience and an institutional legacy as the average time on Capitol Hill for lawmakers has diminished. 

Here are 10 lawmakers whose absence will be particularly notable next year.

 

Rep. John Dingell
(D-Mich.), 29 terms. 

Dingell, who has served in the House since 1955, is the longest-serving member of Congress in history. He practically grew up in the Capitol, as the son of the late Rep. John Dingell Sr. (D-Mich.) and as a House page when he was 12 years old. Known as “The Truck” during his tenure as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Dingell ushered the passage of landmark legislation, including healthcare reform, energy regulations and environmental protection measures such as the 1990 Clean Air Act. Colleagues plan to honor Dingell with a House floor tribute Tuesday evening. His wife, Debbie, will succeed him next month. 

 

Rep. Henry Waxman 
(D-Calif.), 20 terms.

Waxman has also been one of the Democratic Party’s most vocal proponents of healthcare reform and environmental protection regulations. He’s served as the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee since 2009 and was a major player in crafting and the passage of the 2010 healthcare law. Before that, he was the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, from 1997 to 2009, and proved to be a frequent thorn in the side of the George W. Bush administration.

 

Rep. George Miller
(D-Calif.), 20 terms.

Miller was a key committee chairman involved in the 2010 healthcare law and has been one of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) closest friends in Congress. He’s served as the top Democrat on the House Education Committee since 2001 and chaired the House Natural Resources Committee in the 1990s. Miller worked closely with then-House Education Committee Chairman John Boehner (R-Ohio) and the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) on the No Child Left Behind Act. Miller also became known for renting out his Capitol Hill row house to Democratic colleagues, which became the inspiration for the Amazon Studios TV show “Alpha House.”

 

Rep. Michele Bachmann 
(R-Minn.), 4 terms. 

Bachmann will have served in Congress for less than a decade, but she could be one of the best-known lawmakers on this list. The Tea Party star and 2012 GOP presidential candidate became a national figure and was the first woman to win the Ames Straw Poll, but her campaign then quickly faded before the Iowa caucuses. Bachmann was especially well-known for her fierce opposition to ObamaCare and illegal immigration. With her retirement, Capitol Hill will have one less prominent ultra-conservative voice among the likes of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa).

 

Sen. Carl Levin 
(D-Mich.),
6 terms. 

The Levin family won’t have two brothers on opposite sides of the Capitol anymore starting in January. Levin’s brother, Sandy, who serves as the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, will no longer have the same person to sit with each year at the State of the Union address. The longest-serving senator in Michigan’s history, Carl Levin served as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee from 2001 to 2003 and again since 2007.

 

Sen. Tom Harkin 
(D-Iowa), 5 terms. 

As chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Harkin was another key player in passage of ObamaCare. But in retrospect, Harkin last week wondered if Democrats should have held out for a less “complicated” law in 2010 that resembled more of a single-payer system. The loss of one of the Senate’s most progressive Democrats is compounded by the fact that his replacement, Sen.-elect Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), will likely be one of the Senate’s most conservative new members. Harkin also served for five terms in the House, 1975-1985.

 

Rep. Dave Camp 
(R-Mich.),12 terms. 

Despite his failed attempts to move tax reform through Congress, Camp will be relinquishing the House Ways and Means Committee gavel after holding it since 2011. He released a tax overhaul draft earlier this year, but it never made it through committee or to the House floor. Camp’s successor, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), is expected to take up the tax reform mantle in the new Congress. The Michigan Republican has been a part of many of the biggest debates in Congress in recent years, including extensions of various tax provisions, ObamaCare repeal and budget battles.

 

Rep. Jim Moran
(D-Va.),12 terms. 

Moran, a top appropriator, has been one of the most vocal advocates for federal workers, many of whom live in his Northern Virginia district. He frequently gave impassioned floor speeches, particularly during the 2013 government shutdown. Moran also generated headlines in 1995 when he got into a shoving match on the House floor with then-Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-Calif.) during a debate over sending U.S. troops to Bosnia. Capitol Police had to intervene in the incident.

 

Sen. Saxby Chambliss 
(R-Ga.), 2 terms. 

Before serving in the Senate for 12 years, Chambliss was a member of the House, from 1995 to 2003. For the last three years, Chambliss has been the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Georgia Republican also emerged as a potential dealmaker throughout his tenure, such as breaking with Americans for Tax Reform’s Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge and taking part in the bipartisan “Gang of Six” deficit-reduction talks in 2011. 

 

Sen. Mary Landrieu 
(D-La.), 3 terms. 

Landrieu, who entered Congress in 1997, has been one of the few Senate Democrats to depart from her party on issues like energy regulation and same-sex marriage. Landrieu advocated for approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline despite concerns about the environmental impact from fellow Democrats. She also served as a top appropriator and became the Senate Energy Committee chairwoman in the 113th Congress. But her relatively conservative positions weren’t enough to give her a fourth term in the Senate; she lost in a runoff race against Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) over the weekend.