House Appropriations Chairman Heads For The Exits (VIDEO/TWEETS)

By
Darrell Lucus
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The Republicans should be sitting pretty. Donald Trump’s upset victory in the presidential election gave the GOP complete control of the federal government for only the third time since 1933. But that moment has proved rather fleeting. With Trump’s sinking approval ratings and Democratic intensity at its highest level in a decade, 32 Republican congressmen had already announced they weren’t running again.

Well, make that 33. And it may be the biggest retirement yet. Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, announced on Monday afternoon that he won’t seek a 12th term.

Frelinghuysen seemed to have reached the pinnacle of his career when he was named chairman of the Appropriations Committee at the start of the current Congress. The committee writes the laws that fund the government, and its chairman is arguably the most powerful man in Congress outside of the majority party’s leadership. But Frelinghuysen, who is the scion of a family long prominent in New Jersey politics, was facing the fight of his political life in New Jersey’s 11th District, a swath of wealthy exurbs west of New York City.

It was partly because this district was starting to shift away from its suburban Republican roots. Trump only won it 49-48 over Hillary Clinton in 2016–easily the closest that a Democratic presidential candidate has come to carrying it since it assumed its current configuration in a court-ordered redistricting in 1984.

As a result, for the first time in three decades, area Democrats started scouring for candidates a year in advance–an important consideration, considering that any candidate running here has to advertise on massively expensive New York City television. That effort bore fruit when Mikie Sherrill, a former Navy pilot and former federal prosecutor, jumped into the race last spring. Watch her first ad here.

Sherrill has already raised $732,000, and has $495,000 in the bank. By comparison, none of Frelinghuysen’s last nine opponents raised more than $173,000 during the entire campaign.

But Frelinghuysen brought a lot of this on himself. He hasn’t been willing to hold an in-person town hall, prompting a number of local residents to form a grassroots organization, NJ 11th for Change, to persuade him to change his mind. Last spring, Frelinghuysen learned that one of his top donors, Joseph O’Dowd, was on the board of a bank where one of NJ 11th for Change’s top organizers, Saily Avellenda, worked as a general counsel. So when Frelinghuysen alerted his donors about the “organized forces” working to derail the Republican agenda, he scrawled a handwritten note on the letter that went to O’Dowd:

“P. S. One of the ringleaders works in your bank!”

Avellenda was forced to write a letter reaffirming that she was a “friend” of the bank, and the ensuing pressure ultimately forced her to resign. NJ 11th for Change didn’t take this lying down. They showed up at his district office in Morristown a few days later wearing buttons saying, “I Am A Ringleader.”


This was, without a doubt, one of the most ham-handed and outrageous acts from a politician not named Trump. It represented a breach of one of the most sacred trusts in a democracy–that your government will not retaliate against you for speaking out. It makes Frelinghuysen’s retirement statement particularly difficult to understand.

Really, Rodney? Where was your desire to have people “serve the public good” when you bullied a constituent for speaking out?

For its part, NJ 11th for Change is taking a victory lap.

Avellenda expressed similar sentiments in a statement to Sean McElwee of The Outline.

Publicly, Republicans are bullish about keeping this seat. Congressman Steve Stivers, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, stressed that the 11th has been in Republican hands without interruption since 1985, “and we plan to keep it that way in November.” Indeed, at least two Republican state lawmakers are already taking a look at the race.

But a lot of people inside and outside the Beltway think the GOP is going to have to do some heavy lifting to keep this seat. Former Congressman Tom Reynolds, who served as NRCC chairman from 2003 to 2007, noted that it is very unusual for an Appropriations Committee chairman to retire. He believed that while the GOP will try to put “a decent face” on the situation, this “is not good news” for the GOP.

That’s an understatement. A Democrat raising massive amounts of money in a historically Republican district located in the most expensive media market in the world would have been enough by itself to give the GOP heartburn. But now this is an open-seat race in a year where there are already signs of a Democratic wave. Largely because of this, Roll Call now rates this seat as a pure toss-up; the Cook Political Report had already rated it a toss-up before Frelinghuysen retired.


Now the Republicans face the prospect of spending a lot of time and money in a district where, on paper, they can’t afford to spend much of either. Sherrill’s going to need a lot of help to pull this off. Send her some love here.

(featured image courtesy Frelinghuysen’s congressional office, part of public domain)

Darrell Lucus
Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.

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