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... A record number of lawmakers are calling it quits ahead of the midterm elections next year and are running for the Capitol exits, pursuing different offices or retiring from political life altogether.

While there's a temptation to look at a diminished House as a symptom of the first year of the second Trump administration, former members told NPR that legislative stagnation and low morale have been building for quite some time.

Barbara Comstock, a Virginia Republican who serves as president of the Association of Former Members of Congress, said the issues are growing deeper.

"We've done studies showing the reason a lot of people are leaving is because it's not functional, because of death threats, because they're not getting anything done," she said in an interview. ...

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... When Newt Gingrich became speaker in 1995, he shortened the congressional work week to roughly three days so that members would have more time in their districts " and so they could spend more time fundraising for re-election.
An illustration of a donkey and an elephant facing opposite directions.
Alicia Zheng/NPR

Jim McDermott, D-Wash., who served from 1989 to 2017, said it completely transformed the culture.

"We didn't get barbecues together, we didn't do any of the things that used to happen on the weekends to make it a community and make compromises easier," he said. "You have to know somebody a little bit before you trust them, and getting to know somebody is not just on the floor listening to speeches, for heaven's sakes. It's watching them deal with their kids. It's how fair they are on the basketball court."

Former members said the less time lawmakers spend with colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle, the more partisanship deepens. ...

"I got to the point where I wanted to have a conversation with a Republican colleague that I didn't know and [I said], 'I want you to know that I don't view you as my enemy,'" said Anna Eshoo, a Democrat who represented California from 1993 to 2025. "Isn't that something, that I felt like I needed to say that?" ...