TERM LIMITS NOW: Fifty-seven Members of the House of Representatives are either not seeking re-election in November or leaving Congress to pursue another elective office. That’s the highest total for departing representatives in recent memory (as I report in The Washington Stand).

The average tenure of the 36 Republicans is 9 nine years (four terms plus a year), while the average tenure of the 21 Democrats is 14 years (seven terms). The re-election rate for the current Congress is 95 percent. The average tenure of a representative prior to the Civil War was less than two terms.