The Longest Serving Members of the House of Representatives

By Kenneth Chamberlain

Updated: June 4, 2012 | 3:20 p.m.
June 1, 2012 | 3:43 p.m.

Some members of the House of Representatives come to Washington only to leave office after a term or two, either from their desire to take advantage of other career opportunities or their constituents' desire for new representation. Others remain in office year after year, even decade after decade.

Immediately below is a graphic representation of the distribution of representatives based on how long they've been in the House and their party identification (red for Republican, blue for Democrat), according to the office of the Clerk of the House, as of March 20.

When only considering representatives who are at least in their second term, the distribution between the parties is roughly a wash. But the balance tips heavily Republican when considering representatives who were first elected 2010 (those members who are in their second or more nonconsecutive terms are grouped with those members who have served the same number of consecutive terms).

Below that are details of the five longest-serving Democrats, followed by the five longest-serving Republicans, according to the clerk's office.

The Five Longest-Serving Democrats and Five Longest-Serving Republicans of the House of Representatives

Name: John Dingell | State: Michigan | Party: Democratic | Number of Terms: 29 (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

Name: John Conyers | State: Michigan | Party: Democratic | Number of Terms: 24 (Richard A. Bloom)

Name: Charles Rangel | State: New York | Party: Democratic | Number of Terms: 21 (SUSAN WALSH/AP)

Name: Pete Stark | State: California | Party: Democratic | Number of Terms: 20 (Terry Ashe/AP)

Name: George Miller | State: California | Party: Democratic | Number of Terms: 22 (Liz Lynch)

Name: Bill Young | State: Florida | Party: Republican | Number of Terms: 21 (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

Name: Don Young | State: Alaska | Party: Republican | Number of Terms: 20

Name: Jerry Lewis | State: California | Party: Republican | Number of Terms: 17 (has announced that he will retire at the end of this term)

Name: Jim Sensenbrenner | State: Wisconsin | Party: Republican | Number of Terms: 17 (AP Photo/Andy Manis)

Name: Tom Petri | State: Wisconsin | Party: Republican | Number of Terms: 17 (Wikimedia Commons)

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