Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio outside the US Capitol on September 30, 2022.
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images
Rep. Marcy Kaptur, 76, is the longest-serving woman in the history of the House of Representatives.
She faces a tough re-election against a controversial GOP opponent amid broader calls for new leaders.
In an interview with Insider in Toledo, Kaptur touted the benefits that her seniority brings to her district.
TOLEDO, Ohio — Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur is facing what looks to be the toughest general election of her nearly 40-year long political career, though she balks at the notion that she’s never faced a tough race.
“Let me just say: through my whole career, there have been so many massive speed bumps, okay?” the 76-year-old lawmaker told Insider during an interview in a staffer’s black Jeep following a press conference.
Kaptur referenced a strong challenge she faced in 2010 from a Tea Party-affiliated candidate who had a history of participating in Nazi re-enactments, as well as a primary against fellow Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich following redistricting in 2012.
“So it hasn’t been, like, a smooth ride. It’s been like this,” she said, waving her hands up and down while making engine noises, appearing to simulate a plane experiencing turbulence. “That’s what my career has been like.”
Nonetheless, Kaptur has held on long enough to become the longest-serving woman in the history of the House of Representatives in 2018. If she’s re-elected, she’ll surpass the 40-year record set by former Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland to become the longest-serving woman in congressional history.
It’s a milestone that inspires a mixture of admiration and exhaustion among her detractors, including her Republican opponent JR Majewski, a right-wing Republican who’s courted controversy by promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory and misrepresented his military service.
JR Majewski, Kaptur’s Republican opponent, at a Trump rally in Youngstown, OH on September 17, 2022.
AP Photo/Tom E. Puskar
“At the end of the day, Marcy Kaptur has spent 40 years in office, and she deserves recognition for that,” Majewski told attendees of a meet-and-greet event in a Toledo cafe last week. “But that doesn’t mean we’re not going to retire her on November 8th.”
And Kaptur is seeking re-election as the topic of age and tenure in politics is increasingly on the minds of voters. Insider recently explored America’s gerontocracy in the “Red, White, and Gray” project, finding, among other things, that nearly one in four members of Congress are in their 70s and 80s and that the vast majority of Americans view the increasingly advanced age of politicians as a problem.
‘People here have a lot to lose’
Following redistricting this year, Ohio’s 9th district shifted from a relatively safe Democratic district that hugged Lake Erie — known colloquially as the “snake by the lake” — to a Republican-leaning area that encompasses Toledo and some surrounding rural regions.
But after Majewski was caught exaggerating his military service, national Republicans withdrew significant investments they had planned on his behalf. Nonetheless, he still could win. And the 42-year-old candidate has sought to use his opponent’s lengthy tenure to his advantage.
An anti-Kaptur yard sign near Bono, OH on October 26, 2022.
Bryan Metzger/Insider
“Toledo is one of the, I would say most underrepresented, underserved, and under-realized cities in the United States,” said Majewski, listing off problems including crime, economic decline, and a consistently falling population. “When you consider all of that legacy, there’s one constant, at least for the 40 years I’ve been around: it’s Marcy Kaptur.”
But when asked about the stakes of the race by Insider, Kaptur flipped that critique on its head, pointing to the benefits yielded by her lengthy tenure even as she agreed that the district was “underrepresented.”
“Our goal is to win and hold on to the seniority we have,” she said. “Our seniority really matters from the Great Lakes, because we are very underrepresented regionally, with any committee, within any chair, with any — they mix up Ohio with Iowa, because we each have three vowels in our name.”
Kaptur spoke with Insider following a press conference with local officials touting new federal investments in the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, an ongoing environmental improvement project in the region, as the result of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Kaptur at a press conference taunting federal investments in the Great Lakes region in Toledo, OH on October 26, 2022.
Bryan Metzger/Insider
Owing to her seniority, Kaptur sits on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, where she chairs the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development. That gives her much more control than the average member — especially a freshman lawmaker, as Majewski would be — over how the federal government doles out money.
“It’s a lot for a community to give up,” she said. “People here have a lot to lose.”
Even Democratic Senate candidate Tim Ryan, who has otherwise been vocal about the need for generational change in his party, told Insider it’s important for Kaptur to remain in office.
“She’s brought back hundreds of millions of dollars to Toledo,” the 10-term congressman said after a town hall event in the city last week. “It would be foolish for a community like this to not have her there.”
‘People have invested in me, so I can invest in them’
At the same time, the seniority system — in which everything from offices to committee chairmanships are decided by the length of one’s tenure — is a major reason why Congress is skewing older than ever; lawmakers are incentivized to stay for years, even decades, as their power grows with each term.
Some lawmakers want to change that system. Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who ousted the fourth highest-ranking Democrat in the House in 2018, told Insider in September that it’s “important for us to figure out perhaps a better way of determining who should lead a committee, beyond who’s been here longest.”
Asked about calls for generational change more broadly, Kaptur said that “the public will decide that,” suggesting that there’s room for everyone from young upstarts to more experienced, even elderly, lawmakers. “I think you need a blend of that in the Congress,” she said.
“I think I have my faculties, and I have my health, so those are blessings,” she said. “And I know a whole lot, and that’s been hard-earned, and I put it to work on behalf of my people and the country.”
“I feel that people have invested in me, so I can invest in them,” she added.
A billboard for Kaptur’s campaign near Port Clinton, OH on October 26, 2022.
Bryan Metzger/Insider
Kaptur was also quick to point out that there are more than a few lawmakers who are much older than her, including the 89-year-old Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who’s also touting his seniority as he seeks his eighth six-year term in the Senate.
“Grassley — he’s 89!” she exclaimed. “I’m not even close.”
Kaptur is perhaps best known for sponsoring the bill to create the World War II Memorial that now sits in the center of the National Mall in Washington, DC,
But she also pointed out that a number of local projects — including a bridge near downtown Toledo, a federal courthouse in the city, and a military installation in the Western part of the county — may not have come to fruition without her efforts over the course of decades.
“I sometimes just go by and I go, well, that might not be there. You know, you think what it was before, versus what it is now,” she said. “I’m just very gratified that I’ve had the opportunity to actuate some of what was in my mind when I first started out.”