House Exodus Reaches 41 as Two More Plan to Quit

The exodus from the House continued Monday as Reps. Sam Gibbons (D-Fla.), the ranking minority member on the Ways and Means Committee, and Toby Roth (R-Wis.), a conservative opponent of U.S. involvement overseas, said they would not run for reelection.

The announcements bring to 41 the number of lawmakers (26 Democrats and 15 Republicans) who have said they will not return to the House next year. Eleven of them are running for the Senate.

Gibbons’ retirement means he will have spent much of the last term of a 34-year House career fighting Republican efforts to overhaul some of the programs of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society, which he worked to pass three decades before.

“I go with happy memories, a fighting spirit, a lot of thanks and no regrets,” he told a news conference. “It’s time to move on.” Gibbons said he received a late-night call Monday from President Clinton asking him to reconsider.

Gibbons, 76, became Ways and Means chairman in 1994, replacing Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), when the Chicago lawmaker was indicted, only to lose the position when Republicans won control of the House that fall.

Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) is in line to become Ways and Means’ top Democrat.

Gibbons’ Tampa-based district has been shifting toward Republicans recently, offering the GOP another opportunity to pick up a Democratic-held seat in the South. Gibbons won his last two elections with less than 55% of the vote.

While there had been much speculation over Gibbons’ reelection plans, Roth’s announcement that he would retire after 18 years in the House took Wisconsin GOP officials by surprise. “It is the right time for me to come home,” Roth, 57, said.

Roth, chairman of the International Relations subcommittee on economic policy, is among the leading congressional opponents of U.S. involvement overseas, including foreign aid spending.

Roth’s northeast Wisconsin district, which includes Appleton and Green Bay, is reliably Republican.