House Majority Shift Takes Younger Tack, Too

The House is getting a generational makeover even as its majority rule shifts, with ascendant Republicans becoming younger as a group, while Democrats collectively age, The Wall Street Journal reports. The 87 rookie Republicans will lower the average age of the House GOP caucus to 54.9 from 56.5, while the average Democrat in the next Congress will be 60.2 years old, up from 58.

The older Democratic minority also will be more liberal, because some younger moderate Democratic lawmakers from swing districts lost those seats to Republicans in November.

Incoming Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor, 47, believes the GOP "young guns," as they've been called, will change how government works: "I think that these are individuals who know we can't keep doing things and striking deals the way it's been done in the past. We have to start acting like governors, and the way families are acting, and that means stopping the spending."