On Tuesday, Pennsylvania Rep. Charlie Dent joined fellow Republicans Pat Tiberi and Jason Chaffetz in washing his hands of the mess his party’s made and leaving the rest of us to pick up the pieces. Dent announced that he’ll resign “in the coming weeks,” following in the footsteps of Tiberi, who bailed in January, and Chaffetz, who up and quit last June. These Republicans aren’t joining the Trump administration, caught up in a sexual misconduct scandal, or having health problems, which are all conventional reasons for leaving office early. Nope. They’re just bored of their responsibilities as elected members of Congress and are looking for a quick and easy way out.
Chaffetz was the first out the door to become a contributor for Fox News. Tiberi took a cushy job with the Ohio Business Roundtable. And Dent has been in talks to become a TV pundit, too—an easier and higher-paying job than representing the people of Pennsylvania. Of course, they all could have waited until January of 2019 to do these things, but that would have meant putting their constituents needs’ ahead of their own.
A record-setting number of Republicans are retiring this year, but at least the rest of the lot are taking the importance of their office seriously enough to see out their term. These three, though—who asked voters to place their trust in them for two years until the next election—are bailing because they don’t want to bother anymore. They leave their constituents without representation for months and leave their state with the bill for a special election. But that doesn’t matter because they’re not enjoying Washington. Instead, they’re taking their proverbial ball and going home to play a more lucrative game.
Is it more embarrassing that Chaffetz couldn’t make it six months before quitting, or that Dent faced, at most, 75 more days of Congress being in session and decided he couldn’t bear it? Yes, Trump is a disaster and the GOP house caucus is a shitshow, but whose fault is that? Maybe instead of walking away from his duties, Dent could have spent his remaining time in office trying to fix things and holding Trump accountable.
But of course that might endanger his comfortable golden parachute. And if we’ve learned anything about these three, it’s that their personal comfort comes first.