.@USRepRodney announces his retirement
Watch @northjersey for story soon— Herb Jackson (@HerbNJDC) January 29, 2018
Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ-11) is a powerful House Committee chairman. He represents a district that slightly leans Republican (Cook PVI 3) in a neutral year. It is full of well-educated suburbanites who have significant concerns about SALT tax deductions.
This is a big retirement.
Cacti
Buh bye!
Don’t let the screen door hit your ass on the way out.
gene108
NJ’s Congressional delegation is 7 Democrats and 5 Republicans. Hopefully we can make it 12 Democrats getting sworn in, in 2019.
Cacti
OT, but villager Jeffrey Toobin admits to pushing false equivalence between Clinton and Trump during the 2016 campaign:
Apology not accepted, asshole.
Major Major Major Major
Any word on what people expect the SALT policy change to do to blue state property values? Last I heard it might be a wash because it makes home ownership less alluring but owning rental property a lot more alluring.
But her emails!!!
Do they also include information about what hedge fund/conservative think tank/conservative propaganda network he’ll land at?
dedc79
I grew up in that district and my parents still live there. Rodney was going to get a real challenge for the first time in a long time in a district that is not exactly core Trump country. While it would have been more satisfying to see him defeated next November, his retirement makes it even more likely that this seat turns Blue.
Not that anyone here needs reminding, but he is a horrible human being.
danielx
@Cacti:
Link? Concur with your sentiment, btw.
NotMax
Apparently not dyslexic as he has no problem reading the handwriting on the wall.
geg6
@Cacti:
Toobin can just go fuck himself. With a very rusty farm implement.
donnah
What? Another wrinkled old white guy leaving? That alone is worthy of a happy dance. Now let’s hope they fill his empty seat with a fresh new Democrat!
Cacti
@danielx:
Here you go.
OGLiberal
I think there’s been a Frelinghuysen in elected office in NJ since the founding but don’t think Rodney has any spawn lined up. It is a very, very white district and very, very rich but only went for Trump by 1% (49, not even a majority) in 2016 and these are mostly rich white people who think Trump is white trash. So if the Dems can put up somebody credible, they have a shot. Codey is in the district and was pretty popular across lines as interim governor but don’t think he has aspirations beyond where he is today. Tom Kean, the younger, also may be able to claim the district….he failed in the past when he shot higher (lost to Menendez – and often didn’t even try…ie, multiple governor race oppos) but he’s the kind of non-offensive rich white dude that folks in the district would probably vote for, if he tried. But he may like being the big GOP guy in the state senate v. freshman congressman in a party of lunatics.
Mary Jo
This is my district in NJ. Our “Indivisible” group, NJ-11 for Change, has been fantastically organized, active, and on point for the last 12 months. Rodney clearly sees the writing on the wall.
We’re going to flip this district and it’s going to be sweet.
Barbara
@Major Major Major Major: Changes to SALT are going to hurt homeowners who have already bought property in a high tax jurisdiction. It’s as simple as that. Whether they were planning to sell (and thus would get less for their property) isn’t really the issue because most owners in most parts of the country don’t want to sell based on changes in tax law. They will sell when they are ready to move (when they retire, change jobs, etc.) Moreover, in many parts of NJ, the property you would rent isn’t in the same school district as the house you own. I have a friend who tried to rent in a specific school district because she was convinced property was overvalued. She literally could not find anything to rent. There is a lot that is unfair about school districts and NJ really should be trying to consolidate among tiny municipalities all of which have their own library systems and their own police and their own town manager, etc., but this is an extremely blunt measure for doing that, and of course, it was intended to be punitive. Frelinghuysen’s office staff probably can’t go more than 10 seconds of the day without hearing from pissed off constituents. Unlike a lot of Republican die hards, these people are well-educated and they were only voting Republican to begin with for the tax benefits. Oh well.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Hadn’t thought of that, but it seems obvious now that you mention it that the prospect of bening part of a trumpist rump must be a drag on R recruiting.
Good
Barbara
@OGLiberal: Frelinghuysen or one of his relatives is a member of the Society of Cincinnatus, people who can trace their lineage back to the Revolutionary War — the male equivalent of the DAR.
The Moar You Know
Appropriations chair. Doesn’t get more powerful than that. Love to see his internals, he must have known he was going to get creamed.
That’s not a job you give up voluntarily. You have more real power than the Speaker or any other leadership position.
danielx
@Cacti:
Thanks.
Jonny Scrum-half
@dedc79: Agreed. I’m planning to attend a townhall meeting tomorrow night for his challenger, and it would have been nice to have him lose straight-up rather than quit.
danielx
@Cacti:
Not by me.
JMG
The first Frelinghuysen in Congress was in the Continental Congress.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary Jo: Same offer I make everyone here involved in these things: whoever your candidate is that emerges, if he or she needs advising on nat-sec, foreign, and/or homeland security policy and strategy for their campaign, please have them reach out. It would be an honor and a privilege.
Sloane Ranger
@geg6: I am inclined to be more lenient. At least he has acknowledged what he did, which is more than most (any?) others in the media have done. The key for me will be if he has learned from 2016 and avoids such false equivalence in the future.
Willing to defer to Americans on this however.
Fair Economist
@Major Major Major Major:
I think mostly people expect the policies to be reversed in a few years and so are unlikely to make long-term investment decisions based on them.
That change would still cause major shifts in values. Single-family homes are difficult to rent profitably, because they are dispersed and take a lot of maintenance. So generally SFH homes would drop while multi-family residence would become more valuable. Given the preponderance of SFH in most of the country, that means generally a drop, although maybe not in SF.
Arm The Homeless
McCabe retiring. Shit is getting real
https://twitter.com/PeterAlexander/status/958028593988292609?s=17
randy khan
That’s at least two Republican retirements in New Jersey – LoBiondo announced his retirement on Election Day.
They’re both interesting – LoBiondo is in what normally would be a pretty safe seat and, as others have mentioned, Freylinghusen is very powerful, not the kind of guy who usually would retire.
Fair Economist
@The Moar You Know:
He’s R+3 in an election that’s looking like D+4 or D+5, and in a district that’s probably shifting blue more than most. Yeah, that sounds very difficult. Add on the fact that ranking minority member is not all that powerful in the modern House, and the fairly high chance of a flip, and he had strong incentives to retire.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@Sloane Ranger: I agree, Toobin is usually more good than bad. His Scalia obituary was a thing of beauty.
Barbara
@Arm The Homeless: As I understand it, he has been planning to retire for a while now, in March of 2017. I am not sure that this is something new.
David Anderson
@Adam L Silverman: Same here with health insurance — I can and will talk to anyone about that at any time
Fair Economist
@gene108:
There’s only one seat worse than R+3, which is NJ-4 at R+8. At this point I’d say 11 to 1 is the most typical outcome, and all 12 does look doable.
Origuy
@Mary Jo: What do you think of Mikie Sherrill? According to Juanita Jean, she’s the likely Democratic candidate.
billcoop4
Have casually known Rodney since 1982 or so, when he and Leanna Brown–for whom I worked–were in the NJ General Assembly. I was on Leanna’s primary election staff for the State Senate, when she ran against a really wrinkled old white Jersey Dutchman, Jim Vreeland.
It was very clear back then that Rodney (a) was afraid of strong women, and (b) had no guts whatsoever.
I assume he has not changed. I just could never understand, in my WASPy snobbish old-family way, why a scion of one of the older families in the Republic (they arrived in 1720) would hang around and support the parvenus now dominating the GOP. Guess courage is bred out in upper-crusty inbreeding.
BC
ThresherK
@Cacti: But is our Toobin learning? ETA: There have been better things he’s done lately. How to read him, and will the smart one be on the job for the midterms?
—
@billcoop4: I don’t know them, but I have been to the neat Freylinghusen House in the Berkshires. Hope this guy doesn’t move in and spoil it.
—
Study question for all: Was it in the 1990s the last respectable Republican left Congress? And who was it?
Shana
@Arm The Homeless: Shit. Didn’t he only have a couple of months to full retirement?
Shana
@ThresherK: Tom David, VA-11th congressional district, retired 2010. Seat is now held by Gerry Connolly.
Cacti
@Sloane Ranger:
His apology comes at a time when Trump is broadly unpopular and there is zero risk in it.
Do I think he’d avoid jumping on the bandwagon next time around?
Not for a moment.
cain
@Arm The Homeless:
That does not seem like good news to me.
Ruckus
@The Moar You Know:
Strange that they act all tough until it gets rather rough, directly because of who they are and what they do, and then they haul ass. The word chickenshits springs to mind.
Ruckus
@Sloane Ranger:
Do you think that he didn’t know what he was doing, when he was doing it?
If he didn’t know then, what has he learned since? Is he like the guy who thought he was a leader, standing on the street corner watching a march go by and asking the guy standing next to him, “Where are they going, I’m their leader and I have to lead them there.”
He shits the bed and now he wants forgiveness? Naw, I don’t think so.
Sloane Ranger
@Cacti: Ah well, we’ll find out in due course.
@cain: Me neither. I know things move faster over there but telling everyone you’re leaving today at noon and not even waiting to the end of the week, sounds suspicious to me. Like the Comey firing in many ways.
Vhh
@Major Major Major Major: McMansions are not easily rentable properties.
Marcopolo
@Shana: I thought I read he is stepping down from his position but will officially retire in March when he is eligible for full benefits.
Marcopolo
I know Leonard Lance has already said he’s running for re-election but you have to think he also sees the writing on the wall. Although he’s about the most moderate of the moderate R’s I just don’t see him surviving in Nov.
patroclus
@The Moar You Know: In today’s Congress, Appropriations Chair is not very powerful. They don’t do appropriations bills anymore, just CR’s and earmarks are basically gone. Whenever there are negotiations on the CR’s, the leadership and the Budget chairs usually take precedence. I imagine that Rodney is frustrated with that as well as the possibility of a blue wave this fall. He probably waited his whole career and sucked up throughout just to get this supposedly powerful position and it turned into nothingness. Too bad.
burnspbesq
@Barbara:
I grew up in one of those towns, where the parents dutifully trooped to the polls every year to vote for the school budget and the brutal property taxes that went with it, because having a nationally known school system was considered worth it. The State Supreme Court tried to force a more equitable system of education finance back in the 1970s, but couldn’t get it done.
randy khan
@Barbara:
Probably, but it’s not going to happen.
In fairness, a number of New Jersey school districts are regionalized so that it’s not just one town, particularly for high schools in less populated areas. And while it might be more efficient to have county-level library systems, it would be a hard to make it that much more efficient because you can be sure that every town would want to keep its actual library.
Having grown up in New Jersey and then moved to Virginia, I was shocked to discover the whole country/incorporated city arrangement. It always seemed natural to me that you had the town/city/borough level of government, then the county level, then the state level.
randy khan
@Shana:
I think you mean Tom Davis.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Shana: As a civil servant, he may very well have leave that would be calculated into carrying him over to full retirement age. One of the federal civil servants who appear here may be able to clarify the technicalities of that, but that does work in may state civil services. One of my people retired with about three months of annual leave left, and that had to run out before he actually started drawing his pension.