The average age of Members of the current 115th Congress is among the highest in the entire history of the United States.
And if the rest of the nation was in sync with the Michigan delegation, it would be even older. The average age of 14 U.S. House Members from Michigan is 61.2. In the Senate (Democrats Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow), it’s 62.5. For the entire U.S. House, it’s 61 in the Senate, 58 in the House.
The real disparity is between the Democratic members of Michigan’s U.S. House delegation, and the Republicans. The five Democratic Members average 71 years of age, one of the oldest delegations in the country. The average age for the state’s GOP MCs is only 55.8.
According to Jennifer E. Manning, information specialist for the Congressional Research Service, the 115th Congress is probably the second-oldest in U.S. history. The average age of MCs has risen steadily since 1951, with just a slight hiccup in the 1990s. That’s probably because of the a high incumbency re-election rate, the aging of the U.S. population, and the first-time election of older candidates like Republican Jack Bergman from Michigan’s 1st District..
From 1949 until 1963, the average age of Republican MCs was slightly older than that of Democrats. Beginning in 1963, however, the average age of GOP members has been consistently younger in every Congress except for a brief four-year period in the 101st and 102nd Congresses, in session from 1991-95.
The problem for Michigan is that even though the average age of our MCs is actually slightly older than it was, say, three Congresses ago, our seniority hasn’t kept pace with where it used to be. The recent departure of veteran solons like Democrats Carl Levin, John Dingell, David Bonior, Dale Kildee, and Bart Stupak, as well as Republicans Joe Knollenberg, Mike Rogers and Candice Miller, has robbed the state of its pre-eminence on the “clout” list. For three decades, Michigan was a fixture on the “Top 10” chart of states with influence on Capitol Hill. No more. All these “giants,” with a monopoly on seniority, have been replaced with freshmen who are already up there in years.
Here are some other factoids:
— The current Congress is the most racially diverse in history. There are a record 51 African-American Members, a record number of Hispanics (38), and an all-time high number of Asian-Americans (15). The number of LBGT members (7) is the same as in the 114th Congress. Michigan has no known LGBT Members, no Hispanics, and no Asian-Americans, but we have two African-Americans (Democrats John Conyers and Brenda Lawrence), which gives us a higher representation of blacks (12.5%) than in the Congress as a whole.
— There are a total of 109 women in the 115th Congress — a record 21 in the Senate, and 88 in the House, a drop of one from the 114th. We boast a higher representation of females in the Senate (Stabenow) — half the two-person delegation — than does the Senate as a whole. In the House, however, we’re sending only Lawrence and Democrat Debbie Dingell, so we’re slightly less well-represented (14.3%) than the 20% standard for the chamber as a whole.
— The number of Christians in the the 115th Congress is huge, hovering in the 90% range. However, there are 30 Jews, up two from the last Congress but still lower than some previous years; four Hindus; three Buddhists; and two Muslims. There has been a continuing attrition of mainline Protestants, who represent 27% of the membership in the 115th Congress, down from 28.7% in the 114th. “Prods” have been steadily replaced over the years by a rising number of Roman Catholics, evangelicals, and other faiths. Interestingly, Presbyterians — who represent only 2% of the nation’s religious community — still boast 35 members, although that’s down from 36 a year ago. Presbyterians constitute 5.1% of the House membership, 13% of the Senate. Of course, Presbyterians got a big boost in the executive branch of the federal government with the election of Donald Trump, the first Presbyterian since Woodrow Wilson.
Here’s the partisan breakdown of Michigan’s U.S. House delegation since 1964, which was the advent of one person-one vote:
Election Year Result Democrats Republicans
1964 12 7
1966 7 12
1968 7 12
1970 7 12
1972 8 11
1974 10 9
1976 10 9
1978 12 7
1980 12 7
1982 11 7
1984 10 8
1986 10 8
1988 10 8
1990 10 8
1992 10 6
1994 9 7
1996 10 6
1998 10 6
2000 9 7
2002 6 9
2004 6 9
2006 6 9
2008 8 7
2010 6 9
2012 5 9
2014 5 9
2016 5 9
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