WASHINGTON — More than 600 sitting senators have died or resigned from office since the first Congress met in 1789. That doesn’t mean another will happen soon, but it does underline the precarious position that President Joe Biden and Democrats’ reed-thin Senate majority are in following Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Luján’s stroke.
Luján, 49, should recover and return to the Capitol in four weeks to six weeks, barring setbacks, Democrats say. If that happens, Luján’s absence could have limited impact on his party’s priorities, including Biden’s pending nomination to fill a Supreme Court vacancy.
If the New Mexico senator’s recuperation takes longer or he has setbacks, Democrats’ agenda would confront serious problems. And with Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote all that gives them the 50-50 Senate’s majority, each day presents a small chance that Democrats could abruptly lose control if something happens to any of their senators.
According to Senate records, 301 sitting senators have died, most recently Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in 2018. An additional 326 have resigned; the last was Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., who stepped down in ill health in 2019 and died two years later. The figures exclude senators who quit near the end of their terms, often to let a successor gain seniority in the chamber.
That means that of the 1,994 people who have served as senators over the chamber’s 233 years, about 3 in 10 have died in office or quit. That’s an average of 2.7 deaths and resignations annually.
Those events can come in spurts. Fifteen senators from Confederate states resigned because of the Civil War. Seven died in 1918 at the height of the Spanish flu, the most ever in one year, though all their deaths were attributed to other causes, according to Eric Ostermeier, a political research fellow at the University of Minnesota.
Life expectancy is longer today, and so far this century just seven senators have died in office, while 18 more have resigned to hold other offices or for health or personal issues — a combined average of a bit over one annually.
DEMOCRATIC SENATORS
Seventeen Democrats and the two independents who align with them — Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine — are age 70 or older. That includes Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper, who turns 70 on Monday. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is the chamber’s oldest member at 88.
