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Congressional Turnover in Context
November 14, 2017 | By: Joshua Blank, Lindsay Dun

Democrat Gene Green of Houston's retirement brings the number of Texas legislators not returning to the nation's capitol to six as the filing period for office began over the weekend. While Green is only the second Democrat to announce that he won't be returning to the U.S. House of Representatives (along with Beto O'Rourke, who is instead running to replace Texas Senator Ted Cruz in the upper chamber), each recent announcement by Republican Congressman has resulted in a new round of speculation about what these retirements mean for 2018. The questions are both local – like who is going to fill these seats and how will those replacements reverberate down the ballot – but also global, about the 2018 Election, the Republican Party, and the potential impact of Donald Trump. While these are both interesting and worthy lines of inquiry, a simpler question to ask first is:  what the usual Congressional churn looks like in the Texas delegation?

To that end, we have graphics! As always, these can be accessed here and shared, embedded, or even downloaded and printed out – if you're into that sort of thing.

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