Where are they now? Happily, often anyplace but Congress

WASHINGTON -- There are few regrets about leaving Congress among many of the 84 former members of the House and Senate who left during or at the end of the last Congress, either through retirement, lost elections, moves to new jobs or other reasons.

A CQ Roll Call review of the current status of former members of the 118th Congress found that 54 have settled into new roles in the public or private sector; 18 appear to have simply retired.

Six have announced they are running for office again and two are in prison. Four have died.

Another seven can’t be called former lawmakers: They moved from the House last year to the Senate this year.

Away from the ‘asylum’

Many former members interviewed by CQ Roll Call expressed relief that they are no longer in Congress and are at peace with their new lives off Capitol Hill.

“I can tell you that I’m thankful for what they’re doing, but I turn to my husband and I say, ‘Thank God I’m not there,’” said Debbie Lesko, an Arizona Republican who quit after three full terms in the House and was elected to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.

“Oh, hell no,” said Jamaal Bowman, asked in June if he would run for Congress again. Bowman, a progressive, represented New York’s 16th District for four years. He lost a 2024 primary significantly shaped by the Democratic Party’s stance on the war in Gaza.

“That weekend that we lost the primary, first thing I did was teach my daughter how to ride a bike,” he said. “And that was awesome.”

“I don’t miss it, but it was an honor to do it,” said two-term California Republican Mike Garcia, who lost a reelection bid to Democrat George Whitesides in November.

But, he added, “You’ve got to be crazy to want to go back to the asylum, to be honest.”

In fact, only two of the six former House members who have announced plans to run for office are seeking to return to Congress: former Rep. Colin Allred, a Texas Democrat who lost a challenge to GOP Sen. Ted Cruz last fall and now plans to take on John Cornyn, the state’s senior senator; and Yadira Caraveo, a Colorado Democrat seeking to recapture the House seat she lost to Republican Gabe Evans in November after one term.

Three of the other four former members seeking elective office again are running for governor ― Republican Greg Lopez in Colorado, Democrat Katie Porter in California and Democrat Abigail Spanberger in Virginia — while former Democratic Rep. Wiley Nickel this week dropped plans to run for Senate in North Carolina and is weighing a bid to become district attorney in Wake County.

Former Democratic Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri hasn’t ruled out a return to the campaign trail, but she admits to enjoying a more relaxed pace since losing a primary last year to current Rep. Wesley Bell.

“I don’t have to be in four places at once every hour,” Bush said. “That’s what it felt like a lot of times. … Now I don’t have that as much. I’m able to set my own schedule a lot more.”

But she is quick to keep the door open to another race. “I am still weighing if I am going to run for office, whether it be my old seat,” she said.

“I am not out of politics, I will say that.”

Another transition

Some former lawmakers see themselves as moving to a new phase of life.

“I’ve had these transitions before,” said Brad Wenstrup, 67, who retired after six terms as a Republican representing southern Ohio’s 2nd District.

Wenstrup was a surgeon in private practice before joining the Army Reserve and serving 14 months as the chief surgeon at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and then running for office.

This, he insists, is just another change.

Last year, Wenstrup was a high-ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee and the head of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. Now he’s a consultant on health, science, energy and natural security issues who serves on President Donald Trump’s Intelligence Advisory Board. He also helps coach his 11-year-old son’s basketball team.

Derek Kilmer, who retired after six terms as the Democratic representative in Washington’s 6th District, has a similar view.

“There are people who left Congress who were like, ‘Good riddance, get me out of this place,’” Kilmer said. “I wasn’t one of them. I actually liked the work. I loved my team; I felt like I was making a difference. And 20 years of public service felt about right to me.

“I kind of look at life as a series of chapters, and I was conscious that if I was going to have another chapter, it had to start eventually.”

Kilmer is now a senior vice president at the Rockefeller Foundation, where he said he’s continuing his focus on issues he prioritized during his time in Congress: economic development and democracy.

“It’s really smart people, this great combination of big brains and big hearts and desire for impact, and that’s super appealing to me. And, you know, those were the types of folks I looked to work with when I was in Congress,” he said.

He’s happy with his choice to leave Congress when he did. “I haven’t had a day where I regretted the move,” he said.

‘Life is good’

Other former members of the 118th Congress are simply enjoying roles out of the spotlight.

“Life is good,” said Cathy McMorris Rodgers, speaking by phone while picking strawberries with her kids on a June morning in Spokane, Washington. “I look back with gratitude on my time in Congress, the honor of serving the great friends and people that I worked with, and now I’m happy to be home.”

Rodgers, 56, a Republican who served 20 years in the House, including the last two as chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, surprised her colleagues in early 2024 by announcing she planned to leave office and serve her eastern Washington constituents “in new ways.”

The current way she’s doing that is through the new Cathy McMorris Rodgers Leadership Institute, a nonprofit based in Spokane that’s focused on helping to “teach about the Constitution and inspire young Americans to believe in this great experiment in self governance, the United States of America.”

Former Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, also has started an organization, which is called the Dignity of Work Institute and focuses on the needs of working-class Americans.

“It’s not a think tank,” he said. “‘Think tank’ implies passive, and this isn’t passive at all. We’re essentially talking to workers. … I’m not building a political career for anybody. It’s to get workers’ voices heard.”

Brown, who has been on ballots consistently since 1975, said he’s not sure he’ll run for office again.

“I have time to make that decision, but I’m focused on this. When I left office I wasn’t interested in going on a bunch of corporate boards and making a lot of money. I wanted to continue to do what I’ve done, which is speak for workers and advocate for workers, and this is the best way I can do it for now.”

Meanwhile, the former three-term senator, who lost to Republican Bernie Moreno in November, has moved to the Columbus suburbs and is spending more time with his extended family, including eight grandchildren.

“For the first time in many years I’m living in one place,” Brown said. “I don’t have a Washington and an Ohio place. I live in one place, which is nice. I’m not living in 15-minute segment schedules. So it’s very different that way.”

Brown is also working on a book, with a working title of “My Faith and the Dignity of Work.”

Other destinations

Many former members have joined advocacy groups or formed their own nonprofits: Kevin McCarthy, the former speaker, is founder and chairman of the ALFA Institute, a think tank; David Trone, D-Md., is a trustee for his family foundation; Dan Kildee, D-Mich., is president and CEO of the Community Foundation of Greater Flint.

Others have moved to new positions in the public arena. Three are nominees and two are confirmed appointees in the Trump administration, three are governors, one is a state attorney general, one is a mayor, and Lesko is a county board member.

Academia is a landing spot for some, including Oregon Democrat Earl Blumenauer, a special adviser to the president of Portland State University, and Ohio Republican Bill Johnson, president of Youngstown State University.

Former Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., is a fellow at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, has returned to his family farm and hosts a weekly podcast called “Grounded.”

Also joining the podcast world together were Bush and Bowman, two progressive Democrats who both lost primary elections last year amid public uproar over Israel’s war in Gaza.

Their podcast “Bowman and Bush” launched in March and releases episodes monthly. Bush said they envisioned the podcast as a behind-the-scenes look at Congress. They’ve made criticizing the Democratic Party from the outside a focus as well.

Lingering frustration

Part of their criticism stems from what Bush sees as a refusal to allow less tenured members to take on leadership positions, which she says Republicans are more willing to do.

“In some of these races for ranking member of different committees, where we have people who just haven’t been in Congress as long as others but are basically shut out, as if they can’t lead,” she said. “And I just think that that’s something that we have to do differently because our country is made up of people of different ages, different backgrounds, who bring great things to the table.”

Bowman, a former middle school principal in New York City who is now running his own consulting firm on education, shares Bush’s frustrations with Congress.

“No matter how righteous you are or how much you fight for the right things, you’ve got very wealthy people and special interests and big money really dictating a lot of what happens in Washington,” Bowman said. “That is sickening to me. It’s literally sickening on a personal level, to be at a place with so much power, and we can’t raise the federal minimum wage, or we haven’t done enough for affordable housing.”

Garcia, who lost his Los Angeles-area swing district last year, now promotes the Trump administration’s agenda as chair of the newly formed California chapter of the America First Policy Institute.

He misses some things about his time in Congress — classified national security briefings, for one, and helping constituents — but not the “dysfunction” he saw in the House GOP.

“I don’t miss the infighting, the drama,” Garcia said. “When you fight for a majority, when you spend literally every minute of your life, you know, running in a seat. That is, you know, a very Hobbesian world, right? It’s very brutal. And then you get such a thin majority. To see it not hit on eight cylinders is very frustrating.”

In Washington state, Rodgers is keeping the faith. She acknowledged that the country isn’t perfect, “but we’re continually striving for a more perfect union. … I really believe that America has been a force for good, and it’s important to reflect on that.”

In her last years in office, Rodgers often lamented the transfer of power from the legislative to the executive branch.

“I have continued to advocate for Congress to restore its authority and responsibilities under Article 1 because that’s the branch of government that is closest to the people,” she said.

“I just believe that in this great experiment in self governance, it is vital that the representatives, senators, Congress, uphold their constitutional responsibilities under Article 1.”