It won't take long for the dumpster bins to start appearing in the hallways around Capitol Hill. If your boss lost his/her race on Tuesday, you only have a few weeks to vacate your Congressional office.
Some lawmakers will take a lot longer to clean out their digs than others, like Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN), who is ending his career after 36 years in the House. He won his first election in 1974, part of the Watergate Class of Democrats.
Oberstar was Chairman of the House Transportation Committee, extending his reach even further to loyal staffers who work there under his patronage.
His office space in the Rayburn House Office Building will be gobbled up by a senior member.
Just a floor below and down the hall is the office of Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO), the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Skelton was first elected in 1976, coming in with the election of Jimmy Carter as President.
Over the years, Skelton quietly worked his way to the top, but his career ended in defeat on Tuesday night as well. Like Oberstar, there will be a lot of loyal committee staffers losing their jobs as Skelton departs - and as the Democrats lose control of the House.
Two buildings down from the Rayburn is the Cannon House Office Building, the oldest of the legislative buildings for the House of Representatives.
That's where Rep. John Spratt (D-SC) was Chairman of the House Budget Committee. The committee offices were on the second floor, and Spratt's personal office was up a floor.
All of it will get a thorough cleaning as Spratt, first elected when Democrats picked up 26 seats in the first mid-term of Ronald Reagan, will now return home, a victim of Barack Obama's first midterm election.
Those three are just the start of the tornado that's coming down the hallways of Capitol Hill as a result of the 2010 mid-term elections.
And in 2010, it's a tornado that's hitting almost all Democrats.
If I crunched the numbers right, 53 Democratic incumbents lost on Tuesday, while two Republicans went down to defeat.
Those two GOP'ers - Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA) and Rep. Stephen Djou (R-HI) have barely been on Capitol Hill for two years combined. Cao was elected in 2008, Djou won his seat in August. They won't have as many boxes.
But the 53 Democratic incumbents who were booted by the voters, did have some seniority on their side, like Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA), the at times cantankerous lawmaker from the Keystone State, first elected in 1984.
Also from the Class of 1982, Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), a Blue Dog Democrat from southwestern Virginia who had been immune from past Republican efforts to knock him out of office.
On the other end of the spectrum, there were two dozen freshman lawmakers who lost their re-election bids. 22 of them were Democrats and two were Republicans, the aforementioned Reps. Cao and Djou.
Also on their way out, a dozen Democrats who had been elected in the Democratic Wave of 2006, and will now be exiting after two terms in the U.S. House.
They came in on a wave, and they were taken out by a Red Tide.
Add in the members who are retiring and didn't run for re-election - another 34 lawmakers - and that gives you almost 90 House members who won't be back in January of 2011 for the new Congress.
That's a lot of boxes to pack.
It won't take long for the dumpster bins to start appearing in the hallways around Capitol Hill. If your boss lost his/her race on Tuesday, you only have a few weeks to vacate your Congressional office. Some lawmakers will take a lot longer to clean out their digs than others, ...
