The Problem

The former Soviet Union had numbers like these. Why are sitting members of Congress almost always reelected? In November of 2004, 401 of the 435 sitting members of the U.S. House of Representatives sought reelection. Of those 401, all but five were reelected. In other words, incumbents seeking reelection to the House had a better than 99% success rate. In the U.S. Senate, only one incumbent seeking reelection was defeated. Twenty-five of twenty-six (96%) were reelected. What is it about sitting members of Congress that makes them so hard to beat? Are incumbents just better candidates (on average) or is the deck somehow stacked against challengers? For years, political scientists have researched and written about the "incumbent advantage" in congressional elections. In an attempt to explain the overwhelming success of members of Congress seeking reelection, researchers have identified several factors which make sitting members of Congress hard to beat. Read at This Nation Congressional stagnation in the United States From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Congressional stagnation is an American political theory that attempts to explain the high rate of incumbency re-election to the United States House of Representatives. In recent years this rate has been well over 90 per cent, with rarely more than 5-10 incumbents losing their House seat every election cycle. The theory has existed since the 1970s, when political commentators were beginning to notice the trend, with political science author and professor David Mayhew first writing about the "vanishing marginals" theory in 1974. The term "congressional stagnation" originates from the theory that Congress has become 'stagnant' through the continuous reelection of the majority of incumbents, preserving the status quo. The Solution.....VOTE them OUT!!!